Pornography, the Theory: What Utilitarianism Did to Action - Paperback

by Frances Ferguson (Author)

Front Jacket

Pornography first developed in western Europe during the late eighteenth century in tandem with the rise of utilitarianism, the philosophical position that stresses the importance of something's usefulness over its essence. Through incisive readings of Sade, Flaubert, Lawrence, and Bret Easton Ellis, Frances Ferguson here shows how pornography--like utilitarian social structures--diverts our attention from individual identities to actions and renders more clearly the social value of such actions through concrete literary representations.

Author Biography

Frances Ferguson is the Mary Elizabeth Garrett Professor of Arts and Sciences and professor of English and the humanities at The John Hopkins University. She is the author of Wordsworth: Language as Counter-Spirit and Solitude and the Sublime: Romanticism and the Aesthetics of Individuation.