Table of Contents

Illustrations. Credits. Acknowledgements. Introduction: Not Another Biography of Marie-Antoinette! A Select Chronology of Marie-Antoinette's Life. Biographical Sketches of Principal Figures in the Life of Marie-Antoinette 1. Hapsburg Letters: The Disciplinary Dynamics of Epistolary Narrative in the Correspondence of Maria Theresa and Marie-Antoinette 2. The Portrait of the Queen 3. The Diamond Necklace Affair Revisited (1785-1786): The Case of the Missing Queen 4. The Heroine of the Crime: Marie-Antoinette in Pamphlets 5. The Many Bodies of Marie-Antoinette: Political Pornography and the Problem of the Feminine in the French Revolution 6. Pass as a Woman, Act Like a Man: Marie-Antoinette as Tribade in the Pornography of the French Revolution 7. Ambiguous Identities: Marie-Antoinette and the House of Lorraine from the Affair of the Minuet to Lambesc's Charge 8. Marie-Antoinette Obsession 9. "We're Just Little People, Louis": Marie-Antoinette on Film 10. Terrorizing Marie-Antoinette Afterword: The (Ab)uses of Marie-Antoinette. Notes on Contributors. Index

About the Author

Dena Goodman is Professor of History and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan. Her publications include The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the FrenchEnlightenment (1994) and Going Public: Women andPublishing in Early Modern France, which she co-edited (1995).

Reviews

"With superb and intriguing scholarship, these essays capture the complexity of Marie-Antoinette's image from the Old Regime to the present day. The collection stands out for its readability and its insightful analysis of the representation of gender, politics, and sexuality." -- Suzanne Desan, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"Marie-Antoinette: Writings on the Body of a Queen brilliantly captures the many facets of the legendary Queen. Through their analyses of correspondence, pamphlets, archives, and iconography, the authors show the complex networks of slander and passion that shaped Marie-Antoinette's fate. Ultimately, the book also provides sobering insights into the suspicions always generated by the fear of women's empowerment." -- Marie-Helene Hunt, Princeton University
"Dena Goodman has assembled a terrific collection of essays on Marie-Antoinette. It brilliantly reveals how this inkblot of a queen, a mother, and a woman became so potent a symbol in the French Revolution, and has remained so since. And it shows what some of the most original historical scholars have been up to." -- Keith Michael Baker, Stanford University
"Splendid...Showcases work by dix-huitièmistes in history, art history, and literary studies. The contributors, using a variety of sources and methods, analyze the figure of the dauphine/queen from many angles and, in so doing, exemplify creative scholarship in contemporary cultural history. Collectively, the authors transcend traditional petite histoire by examining texts, pictures, and incidents in detail and by speculating about the larger meanings of it all." -- H-France
"Splendid... showcases work by dix-huitièmistes in history, art history, and literary studies. The contributors, using a variety of sources and methods, analyze the figure of the dauphine/queen from many angles and, in so doing, exemplify creative scholarship in contemporary cultural history. Collectively, the authors transcend traditional petite histoire by examining texts, pictures, and incidents in detail and by speculating about the larger meanings of it all.
." -- H-France