Lesson Plan: Illustrated Depictions of Sarah Baartmann,
the Hottentot Venus
Plan: This is a classroom activity designed to encourage students to critically analyze primary source images that would have circulated in popular culture to understand how these illustrations perpetuated racial and cultural constructions that contributed to the establishment and enforcement of British and French identities.
In preparation for this class, students are expected to have read to the end of Chapter Two, “Entering Darkness: Colonial Anxieties and the Cultural Production of Sarah Baartmann.”
What are the most significant similarities in the portrayal of Baartmann across the multitude of illustrations? What do these similarities reveal about Baartmann’s position in the racial conceptions of these white European societies? And how may these depictions contribute to the perception of Black women in these white “civilized” cultures?
How do these illustrations communicate a sense of power and influence being exercised? What does the specific “command” that Baartmann possesses over the “civilized” Europeans expose about the conceptions of Black women in British and French societies?
What role does the viewer of the illustrations play in the perpetuation or refutation of the stereotypical portrayals of Baartmann as a Black woman?
