Abstract
The worldwide interest in the historical figure of The Hottentot Venus (aka Sara Baartman) attests to the desire to rework colonial configurations of “black woman” to open more inclusive and egalitarian notions of citizenship and democracy in a postcolonial world. But how can contemporary practices revise the nineteenth century’s objectifying gaze on The Hottentot Venus without simply repeating it? Can attempts to render voice and point of view to her result in anything but new reductive representations? Can aesthetic practices help problematize and disrupt not only hegemonic representations but also the systems of representation as such, in ways that effectively undermine dominant power structures?
Inspired by Spivak’s assertion that “the figure of woman is pervasively instrumental in the shifting of the function of discursive systems”, this chapter investigates three art fictions—the French film Vénus noire (Abdellatif Kechiche), the American play Venus (Suzan Lori-Parks), and the South African novel David’s Story (Zoë Wicomb)—that seek to circumvent the pitfalls of “speaking for” and “speaking about” the other by offering provisional and partial solutions, always in need of subsequent revisions. The texts work to supplement representation through aesthetic practices such as opacity, re-cycling, and subtraction, thus offering alternative visions in which “(black) woman” is not necessarily re-figured in (new) gendered and racialized discourses, but pre-figures the possibility of alternative modes of citizenship.
Keywords
- Double Bind
- Representational Mode
- Chattel Slavery
- Title Character
- Newspaper Clipping
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Badiou argues that subtraction, defined as “the affirmative aspects of negation” (Badiou 2007), is an integral part of all revolutionary change and suggests that today we need a preliminary or “originary” subtraction: a withdrawing of oneself from under the dominant laws of the political reality (of a situation) to create an autonomous space in which revolutionary possibilities can be thought anew.
- 2.
Dominque Widemann employs the same term in a similar way to analyze Kechiche’s close-ups, but without relating it explicitly to Glissant (Widemann 2010).
- 3.
Parks differentiates between “The Venus Hottentot” and “The Hottentot Venus” designations, of which the latter is historical thus negatively charged and only appears in the inserted play.
References
Baderoon, G. (2011). Baartman and the private: How can we look at a figure that has been looked at too much? In N. Gordon-Chipembere (Ed.), Representation and black womanhood: The legacy of Sarah Baartman (pp. 65–83). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Badiou, A. (2007). Destruction, negation, subtraction. On Pier Paolo Pasolini. Accessed January 30, 2014, from http://www.lacan.com/badpas.htm
Basaran, A. (2010). Representation and the Dominant Gaze. Accessed September 10, 2013, from http://www.jgcinema.com/single.php?sl=dominant-gaze-colonialism-representation
Cuvier, G. (1817). Extrait d’observations faites sur le cadavre d’une femme connue à Paris et à Londres sous le nom de Vénus Hottentote. Mémoires d’Histoire natuelle 3. Paris: G Doufour, 259–274.
Driver, D. (2001). Afterword. Wicomb Z David’s Story. New York: The Feminist Press.
Drukman, S., Diamond, L., & Parks, S.-L. (1995). Doo-a-Diddly-Dit-Dit: An interview. The Drama Review, 39(3), 56–75.
Gilman, S. (1985). Black bodies, white bodies: Toward an iconography of female sexuality in late nineteenth-century art, medicine, and literature. Critical Inquiry, 12(1), 204–242.
Glissant, É. (2000). Poetics of relation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Gould, S. J. (1985). The Flamingo’s smile. Reflections in natural history. New York: Norton.
Gquola, P. D. (2010). (Not)representing Sara Baartman. In What is slavery to me? Postcolonial memory and the post-apartheid imagination. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.
Harrow, K. (2006). The marks left on the surface in Zoë Wicomb’s David’s Story. In F. N. Emenyonu (Ed.), New directions in African literature. Oxford: James Curry Africa World Press.
Kechiche, A. (2010). Vénus noire. Un film d’Abdellatif Kechiche. Paris: MK2.
Larson, J. (2012). Understanding Suzan-Lori Parks. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.
Magubane, Z. (2001). Which bodies matter? Feminism, poststructuralism, race and the curious theoretical Odyssey of the “Hottentot Venus”. Gender and Society, 15(6), 816–834.
Marais, M. (2005). Bastards and Bodies in Zöe Wicomb’s David’s Story. Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 40(3), 21–36.
Mbeki, T. (2002). Speech at the funeral of Sarah Bartmann, 9 August 2002. Accessed August 20, 2014, from http://www.dfa.gov.za/docs/speeches/2002/mbek0809.htm
Oddenino, I. (2011). “I Wanna Love Something Wild”: A reading of Suzan-Lori Parks’s Venus. In N. Gordon-Chipembere (Ed.), Representation and black womanhood: The legacy of Sarah Baartman (pp. 121–135). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Parks, S.-L. (1990/1997). Venus. New York: Theatre Communications Group.
Parks, S.-L. (1995/2013a). Elements of style. The American play and other works (pp. 6–18). New York: Theatre Communications Group.
Parks, S.-L. (1995/2013b). Possession. The American play and other works (pp. 3–5). New York: Theatre Communications Group.
Qureshi, S. (2004). Displaying Sara Baartman, the “Hottentot Venus”. History of Science, 42(2), 233–257.
Samuelson, M. (2007). Remembering the nation, dismembering women? Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.
Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can the Subaltern speak? In C. Nelson & R. Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the interpretation of culture (pp. 271–313). Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Spivak, G. C. (2003). Death of a discipline. New York: Columbia University Press.
Théaulon, Dartois and Brasier. (1814). La Vénus Hottentote ou Haine aux Françaises. Accessed May 9, 2013, from http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k57721188
Wicomb, Z. (1998). Shame and identity: The case of the coloured in South Africa. In D. Attridge & R. Jolly (Eds.), Writing South Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wicomb, Z. (2001). David’s Story. New York: Feminist Press.
Widemann, D. (2010). Cinéma. Vénus noire, d’Abdellatif Kechiche. Accessed September 10, 2013, from http://www.humanite.fr/26_10_2010-cin%C3%A9ma-v%C3%A9nus-noire-dabdellatif-kechiche-456487
Young, J. (1997). The re-objectification and re-commodification of Saartjie Baartman in Suzan-Lori Parks’s Venus. African American Review, 31(4), 699–708.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gjerden, J., Jegerstedt, K., Švrljuga, Ž. (2016). “The Venus Hottentot Is Unavailable for Comment”: Questioning the Politics of Representation Through Aesthetic Practices. In: Danielsen, H., Jegerstedt, K., Muriaas, R., Ytre-Arne, B. (eds) Gendered Citizenship and the Politics of Representation. Citizenship, Gender and Diversity. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51765-4_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51765-4_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-51764-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-51765-4
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)