From Fetish to Subject

The book explores the complex relationship between modern primitivism and colonial ideologies, questioning whether it was complicit or a genuine engagement with cultural differences. Sweeney integrates a range of scholarship to analyze the connections between modernism and primitivism, tracing influences from Dada and Surrealism to figures like Josephine Baker. It highlights the evolution of négrophilie from early 1920s fascination with black culture to deeper reflections on race and representation in the 1930s, challenging conventional academic boundaries.