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  • Full bibliographic data for Figures of Ill Repute

    Title
    Figures of Ill Repute
    Subtitle
    Representing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century France
    Authors and contributors
    By (author) Charles Bernheimer
    Physical properties
    Format: Paperback
    Number of pages: 352
    Width: 229 mm
    Height: 152 mm
    Thickness: 25 mm
    Weight: 590 g
    Audience
    College/higher education
    General/trade
    Professional and scholarly
    Language
    English
    ISBN
    ISBN 13: 9780822319474
    ISBN 10: 0822319470
    Classifications
    BISAC category code: ART009000
    BIC time period qualifier: 3JH
    Dewey: 306.74094409034
    LC classification: PQ653.B45
    Nielsen BookScan Product Class: T1.1
    BISAC category code: LIT004150
    BISAC category code: ART015030
    Edition
    New edition
    Edition statement
    New edition
    Illustrations note
    44 illustrations
    Publisher
    Duke University Press
    Imprint name
    Duke University Press
    Publication date
    15 June 1997
    Publication City/Country
    North Carolina/US
    Main description
    Ubiquitous in the streets and brothels of nineteenth-century Paris, the prostitute was even more so in the novels and paintings of the time. Charles Bernheimer discusses how these representations of the sexually available woman express male ambivalence about desire, money, class, and the body. Interweaving close textual analysis with historical anecdote and theoretical speculation, Bernheimer demonstrates how the formal properties of art can serve strategically to control anxious fantasies about female sexual power. Drawing on methods derived from cultural studies, psychoanalysis, social history, feminist theory, and narrative analysis, this interdisciplinary classic (available now for the first time in paperback) was awarded Honorable Mention in 1990 for the James Russell Lowell prize awarded by the Modern Language Association for the best book of criticism.
    Back cover copy
    "[A]n important work. . . . Shifting nimbly from close textual analysis to biographical or scientific information, from psychoanalytic speculation to anecdotes of social history, this original, exciting study offers . . . a truly liberal view of the seriousness and importance of all our representational activities."--Leo Bersani
    Review quote
    OFigures of Ill Repute brilliantly explores the prostituteOs embodiment of the threat of female sexuality and her subjection to artistic strategies of containment. [BernheimerOs] compelling readings of Balzac, Manet, and Zola and his provocative discussions of Flaubert and Degas advance debates about sexuality and representation and refocus the history of modernity.ONJonathan Culler O[A]n important work... Shifting nimbly from close textual analysis to biographical or scientific information, from psychoanalytic speculation to anecdotes of social history, this original, exciting study offers ... a truly liberal view of the seriousness and importance of all our representational activities.ONLeo Bersani OA remarkable achievement that can be recommended to anyone in nineteenth-century European culture.ONFrancine du Plessix Gray, New York interested Review of Books OFigures of Ill Repute is no less than a brilliant achievement in the debates on sexuality and representation.ONHeather Dawkins, Art History OCombining psychoanalysis, narrative theory, new historicism, and the newly minted approaches of Omen in feminism,O Bernheimer traces male fantasies of the prostitute from Balzac to Huysmans. An impressive sweep of the nineteenth-century canon is brought into play... [A] pioneering work.ONEmily Apter, Novel O[A] fund of insights into the phobias and fantasies that have inspired men to treat womenNand to represent female sexuality, commodified or notNas inherently corrupt, rapacious, and full of danger.ONFrances Gouda, WomenOs Review of Books