Second Skin
Josephine Baker and the Modern Surface
2nd Edition
Published on 21. November 2023
217 pages
978-0-19-774840-4 (ISBN)
Description
Through the figure of Josephine Baker, Second Skin tells the story of an unexpected yet enduring intimacy between the invention of a modernist style and the theatricalization of black skin at the turn of the twentieth century. Stepping outside of the platitudes surrounding this iconic figure, Anne A. Cheng argues that Baker's famous nakedness must be understood within larger philosophic and aesthetic debates about, and desire for, 'pure surface' that crystallized at the convergence of modern art, architecture, machinery, and philosophy. Through Cheng's analysis, Baker emerges as a central artist whose work engages with and impacts various modes of modernist display such as film, photography, art, and even the modern house.
More details
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
02/2024
2nd Edition
Oxford University Press Inc
€29.00
Shipment within 15-20 days
Previous edition
E-Book
12/2010
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€21.99
Available for download
Person
Anne Anlin Cheng is Professor of English and African American Literature at Princeton University and the author of The Melancholy of Race: Assimilation, Psychoanalysis, and Hidden Grief and Ornamentalism.
Content
Preface to the New Edition
1 Her Own Skin
2 In the Museum
3 Skins, Tattoos, and the Lure of the Surface
4 What Bananas Say
5 Housing Baker, Dressing Loos
6 Radiant Bodies, Dark Cities
7 The Woman with the Golden Skin
8 All That Glitters Is Not Gold (or, Dirty Professors)
9 Ethical Looking
10 Back to the Museum
List of Illustrations
Notes
Works Cited
Index
