The Invisible Flâneuse? Gender, Public Space and Visual Culture in Nineteenth Century Paris

by D'Souza, Aruna; McDonough, Tom

• ISBN13: 9780719079429
• ISBN10: 071907942X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-04-01
• Publisher: MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS

Summary

This collection of essays revisits gender and urban modernity in nineteenth-century Paris in the wake of changes to the fabric of the city and social life. In rethinking the figure of the flaneur, the contributors apply the most current thinking in literature and urban studies to an examination of visual culture of the period, including painting, caricature, illustrated magazines, and posters. Using a variety of approaches, the collection re-examines the long-held belief that life in Paris was divided according to strict gender norms, with men free to roam in public space while women were restricted to the privacy of the domestic sphere. Framed by essays by Janet Wolff and Linda Nochlin--two scholars whose work has been central to the investigation of gender and representation in the nineteenth century--this collection brings together new methods of looking at visual culture with a more nuanced way of picturing city life.

Author Biography

Aruna D'Souza is an Assistant Professor of Art History at Binghamton University, State University of New York. Tom McDonough is an Assistant Professor of Art History at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. vii
List of contributors	p. x
Introduction	p. 1
Gender and the haunting of cities (or, the retirement of the flâneur)	p. 18
Women in public: the display of femininity in the parks of Paris	p. 32
Dusting the surface, or the bourgeoise, the veil, and Haussmann's Paris	p. 49
Disorienting Orient: Duret and Guimet, anxious flâneurs in Asia	p. 65
Transcrypts: some notes between pricks	p. 79
Not the flâneuse again: reading magazines and living the metropolis around 1880	p. 94
The flâneuse in French fin-de-siècle posters: advertising images of modern women in Paris	p. 113
Why the Impressionists never painted the department store	p. 129
City of strangers	p. 148
The contemporary flâneuse	p. 168
Afterword	p. 172
Select bibliography	p. 178
Index	p. 183
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