In this engrossing book, Hollis Clayson provides the first description and analysis of French artistic interest in women prostitutes, examining how the subject was treated in the art of the 1870s and 1880s by such avant-garde painters as Cézanne, Degas, Manet, and Renoir, as well as by the academic and low-brow painters who were their contemporaries. Clayson not only illuminates the imagery of prostitution-with its contradictory connotations of disgust and fascination-but also tackles the issues and problems relevant to women and men in a patriarchal society. She discusses the conspicuous sexual commerce during this era and the resulting public panic about the deterioration of social life and civilized mores. She describes the system that evolved out of regulating prostitutes and the subsequent rise of clandestine prostitutes who escaped police regulation and who were condemned both for blurring social boundaries and for spreading sexual licentiousness among their moral and social superiors. Clayson argues that the subject of covert prostitution was especially attractive to vanguard painters because it exemplified the commercialization and the ambiguity of modern life.

Readins in high & low

Ed : Brooklyn College and City University of New York, Revised edition, Includesnew texts, introduction, biography, overview.

This work looks at the surge of Bretons who left their homes in Western France in the latter half of the 19th century to live and work in Paris. Portrayed as backward, ignorant peasants they found no welcome until after WWII. Moch positions her work within immigration theory, connecting migration studies to theories about state projects of assimilation and about cultures of inclusion and exclusion.

English Words aims to arouse curiosity about English words and about the nature of language in general, especially among introductory students who do not intend to specialize in linguistics.