Fictions of Emancipation

Carpeaux's Why Born Enslaved! Reconsidered

Elyse Nelson, Wendy S. Walters

$41.95

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Metropolitan Museum of Art
29 March 2022

The Arts: General & Reference

A critical reexamination of Carpeaux’s bust Why Born Enslaved! and other nineteenth-century antislavery images—this book interrogates the treatment of the Black figure as a malleable political symbol and locus of exoticized beauty

This groundbreaking publication on Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux’s (1827–1875) bust Why Born Enslaved! examines the work in the context of transatlantic abolitionist movements and France’s colonialist fascination with Africa in the nineteenth century. Thoughtful essays by noted art historians and literary scholars, including Adrienne L. Childs, James Smalls, and Wendy S. Walters, unpack European artists’ engagement with the Black figure, simultaneously evoked as a changeable political symbol and a representation of exoticized beauty and desire. The authors compare Carpeaux’s sculpture to works by his contemporaries, such as Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier, Edmonia Lewis, and Louis Simon Boizot, as well as to objects by twenty-first-century artists Kara Walker and Kehinde Wiley. In so doing, the book critically examines the portrayal of Black emancipation and personhood; the commodification of Black images to assert social capital; the role of sculpture in generating the sympathies of its audiences; and the relevance of Carpeaux’s sculpture to legacies of empire in the postcolonial present. It will also feature a chronology of events central to the nineteenth-century antislavery movement.

Edited by: Elyse Nelson, Wendy S. Walters
Imprint: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 178mm, Spine: 14mm
Weight: 452g
ISBN: 9781588397447
ISBN 10: 1588397440
Pages: 140
Publication Date: 29 March 2022
Audience: General/trade , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Elyse Nelson is assistant curator of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European sculpture in the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Wendy S. Walters is concentration head in nonfiction and associate professor in the Writing Program of the School of the Arts at Columbia University, New York.