Impossible Purities: Blackness, Femininity, and Victorian Culture

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The book explores Victorian culture through the lens of black feminist theory and African American studies, challenging the notions of "Englishness" as exclusively white and pure. By analyzing Victorian literature, art, and science fiction, it reveals how concepts of ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and race are intertwined, highlighting the impossibility of purity and the prevalence of hybridity. The author presents substantial evidence that blackness was a fundamental aspect of Victorian society, reshaping the understanding of cultural identity during that era.