History 477

Devine

Spring 2013

Study Questions for Joy S. Kasson, “The Greek Slave”

1. Both Eve Tempted and The Greek Slave by Hiram Powers depicted nude women. Why was the earlier sculpture, Eve Tempted, less popular with American audiences?

2. Why was it morally (and commercially) risky for Powers to take The Greek Slave on an American tour? How did he temper the risk and insure the tour’s success?

3. How did nineteenth century colonialism force Europeans and Americans to rethink assumptions about the universality of their own Western culture?

4. What is “Orientalism”? How did it allow Westerners to deal more consciously with their own sensuality? How did it affect and elicit different responses from Western men and women?

5. How did the narrative device of introducing the “Turkish captors” allow Western audiences to view The Greek Slave in an “acceptable” way?

6. How do ideas about the “harem” contribute to the poignancy of The Greek Slave? How does Powers’ sculpture differ from Cermak’s later painting, Episode in the Massacre of Syria?

7. How did the minister Orville Dewey make The Greek Slave even more “moral” than Powers had in his narrative?

8. In what ways did The Greek Slave appeal to desire as well as morality?

9. How did The Greek Slave call attention to ambivalent attitudes toward female sexuality during the 1830s? How, according to Kasson, did The Greek Slave serve as the “epitome of female sexuality” (63) for antebellum audiences?

10. How did audiences project their own anxieties about “disrupted domesticity” into their reactions to The Greek Slave?

11. Why might The Greek Slave – a victim to commerce – strike a chord with nineteenth century Americans experiencing economic dislocation themselves?

12. Why did contemporary viewers see The Greek Slave as both powerless and powerful? How was she both a captive and captivating? How did audience behavior when viewing the statue suggest its potential “power”?

13. Why is it not surprising that audience reactions to The Greek Slave often seemed contradictory?

Study Questions for Davis, The Circus Age Chapter 4

1. How did women circus performers challenge traditional Victorian social norms of female domesticity and propriety? Why did they have a “transgressive potential”?

2. Why does the author argue that nudity was not “generic” but rather a “historical construction” contingent upon time, place, circumstance, and even race?

3. The author argues that in that presenting women performers circus showmen were offering audiences propriety “with a wink”?  What does she mean by this?

4. How did the Victorian notion of “separate spheres” make performing in the circus (or in burlesque) disreputable for women?  What factors led to the decline of “separate spheres”?

5. How did new attitudes about female desire, women’s increased participation in the public sphere, and the rise of the physical culture movement begin to change the public’s impression of both female circus performers and their “scanty” costumes? How had the definition of “propriety” and “nudity” changed?

6.  How did colonialism inject the issue of race into attitudes about female nudity?

7. How did circus managers describe the personal lives and backgrounds of their female performers?  Why did they believe it was necessary to construct such narratives, particularly about unmarried performers?

8. Why did circus promoters have to use seemingly contradictory “narratives” of domesticity and eroticism to describe female lion tamers and death-defying acrobats?

9. How did promoters balance domesticity and eroticism by justifying female performers’ scanty costumes?  Did “in the ring” and “out of the ring” duplicate the old public vs. private sphere distinction?

10. How did the “gowning revolution” (108-109) reveal how circus promoters tried to attract audiences by playing to commonly held notions about gender and propriety?

11. Why did so many women join the circus? Were they empowered or just reinforcing stereotypes in their role as circus performers? Did big-top performers like May Wirth reinforce or defy society’s view of women?

12. How did circus promoters exploit white audiences’ racism in order to make erotic “ballet girls” (112) more acceptable?

13. How did Albert Hodgini both challenge and reinforce traditional notions about gender?

14. How did the presentation of white female “freaks” allow circus promoters to emphasize respectability but also provide an opening for audiences to contemplate sexuality or perhaps even poke fun at gender norms?

15. Why does the author say that snake charmers and tattooed women were engaging in “racial masquerade” (126)?

16. How were women of color presented in the circus? What traits did they have that supposedly made them “savage”? 

17. How does the popularity of the “ethnological congress” reflect contemporary attitudes about non-western cultures?

18. What factors allowed circus promoters to succeed in “walking the tightrope” between respectability and titillation?  How were they able to escape the attentions of purity reformers?