Domestic Affairs

Intimacy, Eroticism, and Violence Between Servants and Masters in Eighteenth-Century Britain
Erscheinungsjahr 2008
ISBN: 978-0-8018-9049-9
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press

Buch, Englisch, 240 Seiten, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 476 g

From Daniel Defoe’s Family Instructor to William Godwin’s political novel Caleb Williams, literature written for and about servants tells a hitherto untold story about the development of sexual and gender ideologies in the early modern period. This original study explores the complicated relationships between domestic servants and their masters through close readings of such literary and nonliterary eighteenth-century texts.

The early modern family was not biologically defined. It included domestic servants who often had strong emotional and intimate ties to their masters and mistresses. Kristina Straub argues that many modern assumptions about sexuality and gender identity have their roots in these affective relationships of the eighteenth-century family. By analyzing a range of popular and literary works—from plays and novels to newspapers and conduct manuals—Straub uncovers the economic, social, and erotic dynamics that influenced the development of these modern identities and ideologies.

Highlighting themes important in eighteenth-century studies—gender and sexuality; class, labor, and markets; family relationships; and violence—Straub explores how the common aspects of human experience often intersected within the domestic sphere of master and servant. In examining the interpersonal relationships between the different classes, she offers new ways in which to understand sexuality and gender in the eighteenth century.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Straub, Kristina

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments
1. The ''Servant Problem'' and the Family
2. ''In the Posture of Children'': Servants, Family Pedagogy, and Sexuality
3. Interpreting the Woman Servant: Pamela and Elizabeth Canning, 1740 to 1760
4. Dangerous Intimacies: Roxana, Amy, and the Crimes of Elizabeth Brownrigg, 1724 to 1767
5. Performing the Manservant, 1730 to 1760
6. Men Servants' Sexuality in the Novel, 1740 to 1794
Conclusion: Notes of a Footman on the ''Servant Problem,'' 1790
Notes
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Straub, Kristina
Kristina Straub is a professor of literary and cultural studies and associate dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. She is the author of Sexual Suspects: Eighteenth-Century Players and Sexual Ideology and Divided Fictions: Fanny Burney and Feminine Strategy.

Kristina Straub is a professor of literary and cultural studies and associate dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. She is the author of Sexual Suspects: Eighteenth-Century Players and Sexual Ideology and Divided Fictions: Fanny Burney and Feminine Strategy.