States of Undress: Nakedness and the Colonial Imagination

@article{Levine2008StatesOU,
  title={States of Undress: Nakedness and the Colonial Imagination},
  author={Philippa Levine},
  journal={Victorian Studies},
  year={2008},
  volume={50},
  pages={189 - 219}
}
  • P. Levine
  • Published 11 July 2008
  • Art
  • Victorian Studies
The politics and aesthetics of nakedness was, for Victorians, both complex and slippery, the result of ambivalent nineteenth-century attitudes toward the unclothed body. This essay argues that such vexed attitudes about nudity and nakedness in Victorian Britain cannot fully be comprehended without reference to the experience of empire. Colonialism's seemingly timeless fascination with indigenous undress provoked a number of questions about human difference, evolution, and the nature of… 
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