Sexual Antipodes: Enlightenment Globalization and the Placing of SexSexual Antipodes is about how Enlightenment print culture built modern national and racial identity out of images of sexual order and disorder in public life. It examines British and French popular journalism, utopian fiction and travel accounts about South Sea encounter, pamphlet literature, and pornography, as well as more traditional literary sources on the eighteenth century, such as the novel and philosophical essays and tales. The title refers to a premise in utopian and exoticist fiction about the southern portion of the globe: sexual order defines the character of the state. The book begins by examining how the idea of sexual order operated as the principle for explaining national differences in eighteenth-century contestation between Britain and France. It then traces how, following British and French encounters with Tahiti, the comparison of different national sexual orders formed the basis for two theories of race: race as essential character and race as degeneration. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
National Character Publicity and Sex | 25 |
Public Women in the French Body Politic | 46 |
Copyright | |
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Sexual Antipodes: Enlightenment Globalization and the Placing of Sex Pamela Cheek Limited preview - 2003 |
Sexual Antipodes: Enlightenment Globalization and the Placing of Sex Pamela Cheek Limited preview - 2003 |
Common terms and phrases
actress allegories Anders Sparrman Antipodes Apprius argued austral body politic Bordeu Bougainville British and French brothel Cambridge century character claims colonial Comédie-Française degeneration Diderot domestic edition eighteenth encounter England English Enlightenment erotic Erotopolis Essay on Woman European female fictions France gender George Forster global Hawkesworth heterosexual History human hybrid Ibid idea ideal brothel identity imagined inspector institutions island Jean-Jacques Rousseau John Hawkesworth Joseph Banks language late eighteenth-century Le Pornographe Les Bijoux indiscrets letter libertine London Louis XV Madame male Malthus marriage Mémoires secrets Merryland moral narrative natural novel Oberea Pacific Paris passion perfection philosophical pleasure population pornography Press print culture prostitution Raucourt readers representations reproduction Restif role royal Sade Sade's savage scandalous writing scene sensibility sexual desire sexual order social society sodomy South Sea spectacle star actress Supplément Tahiti Tahitian Tamoé theater tion travel accounts tribade utopias voyage Wilkes women York