Josephine Baker (1906-1975) was a dancer, singer, actress, author,
politician, militant, and philanthropist, whose images and cultural
legacy have survived beyond the hundredth anniversary of her birth.
Neither an exercise in postmodern deconstruction nor simple biography,
Josephine Baker in Art and Life presents a critical cultural study of
the life and art of the Franco-American performer whose appearances as
the savage dancer Fatou shocked the world.
Although the study remains firmly anchored in Josephine Baker's life and
times, presenting and challenging carefully researched biographical
facts, it also offers in-depth analyses of the images that she
constructed and advanced. Bennetta Jules-Rosette explores Baker's
far-ranging and dynamic career from a sociological and cultural
perspective, using the tools of sociosemiotics to excavate the
narratives, images, and representations that trace the story of her life
and fit together as a cultural production.