Traffic in Souls
The 'New Woman,' Whiteness and Mobile Self-Possession
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2405805 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Eric Olund (0000-0002-0058-8698, University of Sheffield, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 485-504 |
| Publication date | 2009-10-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Cultural Geographies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1474-4740 • E-ISSN: 1477-0881 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1474474009340088 |
| OpenAlex | W2004733660 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
Traffic in Souls (Universal, 1913) inaugurated a spate of so-called white slave pictures at a time the US was experiencing a moral panic over prostitution. The film enacts a sexual and racial geography of the industrial city, one that is mobile and aleatory and requires a similarly mobile yet self-possessed subject to navigate it and its dangers successfully. Social reformers staffing the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures sought to steer the narrative outcome of the film toward a certain moral end, one that encouraged the production of a governmental subjectivity for its white, female spectators. This was a 'constructive' regulatory agenda toward sexuality through cinema that worked in tension with the more coercive statutory prohibition of prostitution, one that was thoroughly racialized through its exclusion of African Americans from concern
Aesthetics · Art · Criminology · Moral panic · Movie theater · Narrative · Political science · Possession (linguistics · Sociology · Subjectivity · Visual arts · White (mutation · Cinema and Media Studies · European history and politics · Gender Studies · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology
| Citations per year | 0.38 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2010 - 2023 (14) |
| Highly cited | No |