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Description of  Legal Spectatorship: Slavery and the Visual Culture of Domestic Violence

In Legal Spectatorship Kelli Moore traces the political origins of the concept of domestic violence through visual culture in the United States. Tracing its appearance in Article IV of the Constitution, slave narratives, police notation, cybernetic theories of affect, criminal trials, and the look of the battered woman, Moore contends that domestic violence refers to more than violence between intimate partnersit denotes the mechanisms of racial hierarchy and oppression that undergird republican government in the United States. Moore connects the use of photographic evidence of domestic violence in courtrooms, which often stands in for womens testimony, to slaves silent experience and witnessing of domestic abuse. Drawing on Harriet Jacobss Read more