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The countless retellings and reimaginings of the private and public lives of Phillis Wheatley, Sally Hemings, Sarah Baartman, Mary Seacole, and Sarah Forbes Bonetta have transformed them into difficult cultural and black feminist icons. In
Infamous Bodies, Samantha Pinto explores how histories of these black women and their ongoing fame generate new ways of imagining black feminist futures. Drawing on a variety of media, cultural, legal, and critical sources, Pinto shows how the narratives surrounding these eighteenth- and nineteenth-century celebrities shape key political concepts such as freedom, consent, contract, citizenship, and sovereignty. Whether analyzing Wheatley's fame in relation to conceptions of race and freedom, notions of consent in Hemings's relationship with Thomas Jefferson, or Baartman's ability to enter into legal contracts, Pinto reveals the centrality of race, gender, and sexuality in the formation of political rights. In so doing, she contends that feminist theories of black women's vulnerable embodiment can be the starting point for future progressive political projects.
List of contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction. Infamous Bodies, Corrective Histories 1
1. Fantasies of Freedom: Phillis Wheatley and the "Deathless Fame" of Black Feminist Thought 31
2. The Romance of Consent: Sally Hemings, Black Women's Sexuality, and the Fundamental Vulnerability of Rights 65
3. Venus at Work: The Contracted Body and Fictions of Sarah Baartman 105
4. Civic Desire: Mary Seacole's Adventures in Black Citizenship 139
5. #DevelopmentGoals: Sovereignty, Sarah Forbes Bonetta, and the Production of the Black Feminist Political Subject 173
Conclusion. Black Feminist Celebrity and the Political Life of Vulnerability 203
Notes 207
References 221
Index 243
About the author
Samantha Pinto is Associate Professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin, author of
Difficult Diasporas: The Transnational Feminist Aesthetic of the Black Atlantic, and coeditor of
Writing beyond the State: Post-Sovereign Approaches to Human Rights in Literary Studies.
Summary
Samantha Pinto explores how histories of and the ongoing fame of Phillis Wheatley, Sally Hemings, Sarah Baartman, Mary Seacole, and Sarah Forbes Bonetta generate new ways of imagining black feminist futures.
