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The "Batty" Politic: Toward an Aesthetics of the Black Female Body
- Hypatia
- Indiana University Press
- Volume 18, Number 4, Fall/Winter 2003
- pp. 87-105
- 10.1353/hyp.2003.0079
- Article
- Additional Information
I assess representations of black women's derrières, which are often depicted as grotesque, despite attempts by some black women artists to create a black feminist aesthetic that recognizes the black female body as beautiful and desirable. Utilizing a black feminist disability theory, I revisit the history of the Hottentot Venus, which contributed to the shaping of this representational trope, and I identify a recurring struggle among these artists to recover the "unmirrored" black female body.