Slavery and the Culture of Taste

(Princeton University Press) In this book, Gikandi shows how in the 18th century the worlds of slavery and the worlds of culture, taste, and manners, were connected. Gikandi takes his study from Britain to the antebellum South and the West Indies, illustrating how the ugliness and violence of enslavement shaped theories of taste and thoughts about beauty and high culture. Gikandi is the Robert Schirmer Professor of English at Princeton University.