Domestic Affairs: Intimacy, Eroticism, and Violence between Servants and Masters in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Author:   Kristina Straub (Professor and Associate Dean, Humanities and Social Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University)
Publisher:   Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN:  

9780801890499


Pages:   240
Publication Date:   30 March 2009
Recommended Age:   From 17
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
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Domestic Affairs: Intimacy, Eroticism, and Violence between Servants and Masters in Eighteenth-Century Britain


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Overview

From Daniel Defoe's Family Instructor to William Godwin's political novel Caleb Williams, literature written for and about servants tells a hitherto untold story about the development of sexual and gender ideologies in the early modern period. This original study explores the complicated relationships between domestic servants and their masters through close readings of such literary and nonliterary eighteenth-century texts. The early modern family was not biologically defined. It included domestic servants who often had strong emotional and intimate ties to their masters and mistresses. Kristina Straub argues that many modern assumptions about sexuality and gender identity have their roots in these affective relationships of the eighteenth-century family. By analyzing a range of popular and literary works-from plays and novels to newspapers and conduct manuals-Straub uncovers the economic, social, and erotic dynamics that influenced the development of these modern identities and ideologies. Highlighting themes important in eighteenth-century studies-gender and sexuality; class, labor, and markets; family relationships; and violence-Straub explores how the common aspects of human experience often intersected within the domestic sphere of master and servant. In examining the interpersonal relationships between the different classes, she offers new ways in which to understand sexuality and gender in the eighteenth century.

Full Product Details

Author:   Kristina Straub (Professor and Associate Dean, Humanities and Social Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University)
Publisher:   Johns Hopkins University Press
Imprint:   Johns Hopkins University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.20cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.476kg
ISBN:  

9780801890499


ISBN 10:   0801890497
Pages:   240
Publication Date:   30 March 2009
Recommended Age:   From 17
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 1. The ''Servant Problem'' and the Family 2. ''In the Posture of Children'': Servants, Family Pedagogy, and Sexuality 3. Interpreting the Woman Servant: Pamela and Elizabeth Canning, 1740 to 1760 4. Dangerous Intimacies: Roxana, Amy, and the Crimes of Elizabeth Brownrigg, 1724 to 1767 5. Performing the Manservant, 1730 to 1760 6. Men Servants' Sexuality in the Novel, 1740 to 1794 Conclusion: Notes of a Footman on the ''Servant Problem,'' 1790 Notes Index

Reviews

<p>Straub succeeds in providing valuable insights into how understandings of the servant-master relationship inflected and even drove her examples and were also involved in shaping understandings of gender, clas, and the family more broadly.--Catherine Keohane Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer (01/01/0001)


Author Information

Kristina Straub is a professor of literary and cultural studies and associate dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. She is the author of Sexual Suspects: Eighteenth-Century Players and Sexual Ideology and Divided Fictions: Fanny Burney and Feminine Strategy.

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