Description
Book SynopsisBrings to light a body of harem imagery that was created through a dynamic process of cultural exchange. The author focuses on images produced by nineteenth-century European artists and writers who were granted access to harems in the urban centres of Istanbul and Cairo. These Europeans were "intimate outsiders" within the women's quarters.
Trade Review“This is an outstanding example of a truly interdisciplinary study, integrating painting, photography, travel narrative, and especially harem portraiture. Mary Roberts describes encounters between women—both British travelers and the women of Istanbul and Cairo harems—in a refreshing, innovative analysis of the historical and imaginary workings of harem imagery as forms of cross-cultural exchanges and interactions.”—
Julie F. Codell, editor of
Imperial Co-Histories: National Identities and the British and Colonial Press“Transforming debates about Orientalism, gender, and cultural and political agency, Mary Roberts writes with beguiling simplicity about complicated subjects, taking her readers through a potentially bewildering maze of interdisciplinary and cross-cultural material with a voice both authoritative and accessible.”—
Reina Lewis, author of
Rethinking Orientalism: Women, Travel, and the Ottoman Harem“Roberts hits all the important marks, and hits them well: political agency; gender roles; the ways in which the harem both fostered and smothered particular types of female power; the ways in which the encounter between westerner and oriental provided the latter an occasion to orchestrate what it was that was on display. All in and of themselves important–and complicated–questions, ones that too often have been treated superficially or unimaginatively. Here we get them all, with care and subtlety–and in a package that makes for surprisingly enjoyable reading.” -- K. E. Fleming * Journal of Colonialism & Colonial History *
“The intimacy Roberts describes in this excellent book is exciting because it provides an alternative to the distancing and empowering notion of orientalism advocated by Said. . . . The stories told in
Intimate Outsiders form a significant contribution to the history of painting in nineteenth-century Istanbul, and to the history of international networks among women of privileged social classes. What else they might mean will depend on what, if anything, is able to succeed ‘orientalism’ as a tool for the political analysis of global culture.” -- Nicholas Tromans * Art History *
Table of ContentsIllustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Intimate Outsiders 1
Part 1: John Frederick Lewis's Harem Paintings
Chapter One. The Languid Lotus-Eater 19
Chapter Two. "Mr. Lewis's Oriental paradises" 38
Part 2: British Women's Travelogues
Chapter Three. Pleasures in Detail 59
Chapter Four. Being Seen 80
Chapter Five. Sartorial Adventures and Satiric Narratives 92
Part 3: Harem Portraiture
Chapter Six. The Politics of Portraiture behind the Veil 109
Chapter Seven. Oriental Dreams 128
Epilogue 150
Notes 157
Selected Bibliography 177
Index 187
