
Sapphic Primitivism: Productions of Race, Class and Sexuality in Key Works of Modern Fiction (Paperback)
Robin Hackett (author)
£24.95
Paperback
200 Pages /
Published: 31/01/2004
- Temporarily unavailable
Email me when available
Stay one step ahead and let us notify you when this item is next available to order
Email me when available
Enter your email below and we will notify you when this item is next available to order.

Sapphic Primitivism: Productions of Race, Class and Sexuality in Key Works of Modern Fiction (Paperback)
£24.95
Thank you
We will contact you when this item is next available to order.
In this book, Robin Hackett examines portrayals of race, class, and sexuality in modernist texts by white women to argue for the existence of a literary device that she calls ""Sapphic primitivism." The works vary widely in their form and content and include Olive Schreiner's proto-modernist exploration of New Womanhood, The Story of an African Farm; Virginia Woolf's high modernist ""play-poem," The Waves; Sylvia Townsend Warner's historical novel, Summer Will Show; and Willa Cather's Southern pastoral, Sapphira and the Slave Girl. In each, blackness and working-class culture are figured to represent sexual autonomy, including lesbianism, for white women. Sapphic primitivism exposes the ways several classes of identification were intertwined with the development of homosexual identities at the turn of the century. Sapphic primitivism is not, however, a means of disguising lesbian content. Rather, it is an aesthetic displacement device that simultaneously exposes lesbianism and exploits modern, primitivist modes of self-representation. Hackett's revelations of the mutual interests of those who study early twentieth-century constructions of race and sexuality and twenty-first-century feminists doing anti-racist and queer work are a major contribution to literary studies and identity theory.
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813533476
Number of pages: 200
Weight: 336 g
Dimensions: 226 x 161 x 13 mm
You may also be interested in...
Please sign in to write a review
Sign In / Register
Not registered? CREATE AN ACCOUNTCREATE A plus ACCOUNT
Sign In
Download the Waterstones App
Would you like to proceed to the App store to download the Waterstones App?
Click & Collect
Reserve online, pay on collection.
Please note that owing to current COVID-19 restrictions, many of our shops are closed. Find out more by clicking here.
Please note that owing to current COVID-19 restrictions, many of our shops are closed. Find out more by clicking here.
Thank you for your reservation
Your order is now being processed and we have sent a confirmation email to you at
When will my order be ready to collect?
Following the initial email, you will be contacted by the shop to confirm that your item is available for collection.
Call us on or send us an email at
Unfortunately there has been a problem with your order
Please try again or alternatively you can contact your chosen shop on or send us an email at