Spectacular Body

In this handsome book, Anthea Callen deals with issues of sexuality, gender, and visual representation to illuminate the underlying meanings of Degas's depictions of women in his series of bathers, dancers, and prostitutes. She argues that the gender politics of Degas' culture made it inevitable that he represent masculine desire-and anxieties about masculine identity evoked by such desire-through an apparently detached masculine scrutiny of the female body.