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The Body in Time; Figures of Femininity in Late Nineteenth-Century France

Research imperatives and context: This book comprises two chapters, each an extended version of a lecture delivered in the Franklin D Murphy Series, at the University of Kansas. The book looks at two different genres in relation to the construction of femininity in late nineteenth-century France: Degas's representation of ballet dancers and the transforming tradition of female portraiture heralded by the fin de siècle ideal of the "new woman" and the increasing visibility of woman portraitists. Putting them alongside one another allows for a reconsideration of portraiture and modern life painting as well as an exploration of the way that class, gender, power and agency are at stake in both arenas notwithstanding their use of very different pictorial languages.