Torrid Zones: Maternity, Sexuality, and Empire in Eighteenth-Century English Narratives

278 Pages·1995·6.352 MB·English

by  Felicity Nussbaum

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Maternity Sexuality, and Empire
in Eighteenth-Century English Narratives
Felicity A.JVussbaum
THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS
Baltimore and London
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© 1995 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 1995
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
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The Johns Hopkins University Press
2715 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4319
The Johns Hopkins Press Ltd., London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
will be found at the end of this book.
A catalog record for this book is available from the
British Library.
isbn 0-8018-5074-6
isbn 0-8018-5075-4 (pbk.)
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FOR
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Janet Gladfelter Nussbaum
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and Leo Lester Nussbaum
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C o n t e n t s
Acknowledgments ix
in trod u ction : England’s Other Women
1 Torrid Mothers: Domesticating the Erotic
2 “Savage” Mothers: Johnsons Life of Savage
3 I Polygamy, Pamela, and the Prerogative
of Empire
4 Prostitution, Body Parts, and Sexual
Geography
5 The Empire of Love: The Veil and the Blush
of Romance
6 Feminotopias: The Seraglio, the Homoerotic,
and the Pleasures of “Deformity”
7 “An Affectionate and Voluntary Sacrifice”:
Sati, Rape, and Marriage
epilogue: Whose Enlightenment Is It?
Notes 2ii Index 255

A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s
I have been very lucky while writing this book in various venues to
have been surrounded by good friends and colleagues. My debts are
deep, but none so great as to Jean E. Howard, with whom I have
shared ideas and female friendship for almost two decades. Carol
Barash, Toni Bowers, Laura Brown, Terry Casde, Margaret Doody,
Roxann Eberle, Margo Hendricks, Cora Kaplan, Pat Parker, Ruth
Perry, James Turner, and Bill Warner each contributed to the manu­
script in ways they have probably forgotten but for which I am very
grateful. Dympna Callaghan and Harriet Guest read several chapters
and spurred me on with spirited critique, and John Bender offered
generous and sage counsel.
The Stanford Humanities Center provided a lively intellectual
community as I drafted the bulk of the book, and the community of
fellows contributed to making it a most memorable year, especially
Kathleen Canning, Sandra Greene, Kate Hayles, and Ana Zentella.
Herbie Lindenberger, Charles Junkerman, and the skilled staff at the
Center encouraged my work at every turn. The John Simon Guggen­
heim Memorial Foundation also granted a fellowship for the comple­
tion of the book. Audiences too numerous to name have improved this
work with their penetrating questions and interest, including espe­
cially the David Nichol Smith Seminar in Melbourne, Australia, the
Bay Area Eighteenth-Century Group, and the University of Pennsyl­
vania Early Modern Culture Seminar. The students in my graduate
seminars, as well as Sara Gadeken, Michelle Jensen, David Weed, and
Roxann Wheeler, contributed to the ideas in embryo.
I want to thank especially the staffs of the rare books collections at
Stanford University libraries, the Cornell University Libraries, The
British Library, and the Syracuse University Library. Carolyn Moser’s
editorial expertise greatly improved the manuscript. A version of
Chapter 2 appeared in Cultural Critique 20 (Winter 1991-92) and was
reprinted in Eighteenth-Century Life 16, n.s. 1 (February 1992); and a
version of Chapter 3 was published in Women, “Race, ” and Writing in
the Early Modern Period, ed. Margo Hendricks and Patricia Parker
(New Yorlc Roudedge 1993). Australian Womens Book Review (Fall
1993) published a short section of Chapter 1.
Annika and Peter Ekman and their family have provided good