Sarah Cohen is Professor of Art History and Women’s Studies at the University at Albany, USA. She has published extensively on representations of the body, both human and animal. Her first book Art, Dance and the Body in French Culture the Ancien Régime was published in 2000.
In this landmark study of rare distinction, Sarah Cohen effortlessly combines superlative scholarship with engaging prose. She enlightens her readers with stunningly new insights about things we thought we understood, but did not. We will be engaged with this brilliant book for a very long time. * Christopher M. S. Johns, Former Norman & Roselea Goldberg Professor of History of Art, Vanderbilt University, USA * In this intellectually path-breaking book, Cohen shows how animal imagery prompted new ideas about knowledge, sensation, and the permeable boundary between human and nonhuman life. Her passion for the material comes through on every page. * Meredith Martin, Associate Professor of Art History, New York University, USA * Shedding welcome light on a hitherto under-examined aspect of eighteenth-century French art, Sarah Cohen convincingly aligns representations of animals with a new valorisation of sensory experience that challenged traditionally anthropocentric values. * Emma Barker, Senior Lecturer in Art History, The Open University, UK *