Betsy Prioleau | |
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Occupation | Author |
Language | English |
Alma mater | University of Virginia Duke University |
Genre | Cultural history, Nineteenth-Century literature and history, Feminism, seduction |
Website | |
www |
Betsy Prioleau is an American author and cultural historian. Prioleau's books include Swoon: Great Seducers and Why Women Love Them and Seductress: Women Who Ravished the World and Their Lost Art of Love, [1] and Diamonds and Deadlines: A Tale of Greed, Deceit, and A Female Tycoon in the Gilded Age.
Prioleau was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. [2] She graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.S. and M.A. in English and received a PhD in American literature at Duke University. [3] [4]
After completing her PhD, she taught English and world literature at Manhattan College, where she was an associate tenured professor. She then taught cultural history at New York University Liberal Studies Program. [5] Prioleau regularly appears on radio shows as an expert on seduction and related topics. [6] [7] She was the co-host of Errol Gluck's popular podcast, GluckRadio from 2013 to 2014 until she left the show to pursue a writing project.
Prioleau has written essays, scholarly articles, and four books. Prioleau's first book was titled Circle of Eros: Sexuality in the Work of William Dean Howells. In 2003, she wrote Seductress: Women Who Ravished the World and Their Lost Art of Love, and in 2013, Swoon: Great Seducers and Why Women Love Them. Her latest book is titled Diamonds and Deadlines: A Tale of Greed, Deceit, and a Female Tycoon in the Gilded Age, 2022.
The Circle of Eros: Sexuality in the Work of William Dean Howells is a study of the nineteenth-century American author and editor William Dean Howells. The book discusses the sexual themes in his novels, essays, and autobiographies, and shows how he arrived at a positive view of erotic love. [8]
Prioleau published Seductress: Women Who Ravished the World and Their Lost Art of Love in 2003. The book re-examines seductresses, refutes the negative stereotypes, and portrays the lives of such women as Cleopatra, Lola Montez, and Mae West as well as modern women. The book also gives romantic advice to women. [9]
The book received positive reviews. [10] Publishers Weekly wrote that "whether one buys her argument or not, [Seductress is] wildly engaging reading and faultless scholarship. [11] The New York Times wrote that "in this glossy, steam-heated analysis of temptresses and their tactics, no historical chapter is too obscure to provide inspiration." [12]
Swoon: Great Seducers and Why Women Love Them is a non-fiction book which analyses what makes a man attractive to women. Prioleau uses biographies, fiction, and science to discuss the secrets of men throughout the history and today that make them great lovers. [13] [14] On the whole, the book was well received. Jonathan Yardley reviewed the book negatively and wrote that it is "a breezy, once-over-lightly book about sex." [2] Library Journal wrote that, "with exceptional vocabulary and bright prose, Prioleau offers a thoroughly researched, irresistible look at the characteristics of historical and contemporary seducers." [15] Kirkus Reviews called the book, "A fun, frothy complement to cultural historian Prioleau's Seductress: Women Who Ravished the World." [16]
Diamonds and Deadlines: A Tale of Greed, Deceit, and a Female Tycoon in the Gilded Age is a biography of Mrs. Frank Leslie, the first publishing titan in America and cultural history of the seismic, momentous postbellum years. Prioleau draws from letters and historical sources to reveal the unknown, sensational life of Miriam Leslie, the “Empress of Journalism” who ran the Frank Leslie company for twenty years. A century ahead of her time, she left her multimillion- dollar estate to women’s suffrage, a never-equaled amount that guaranteed passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Pre-publication reviews have been positive: “They just don’t make characters like this anymore. Kudos to Prioleau for her gallant historical rescue mission.” Kirkus Reviews [December 9, 2021]
She is married to Philip Prioleau, a retired dermatologist. [17]
Catherine Colyear,suo jureCountess of Dorchester and Countess of Portmore, was an English noble and courtier. She was the mistress of King James II of England both before and after he came to the throne. Catherine was noted not for beauty but for her celebrated wittiness and sharp tongue.
Ann K. Powers is an American writer and popular music critic. She is a music critic for NPR and a contributor at the Los Angeles Times, where she was previously chief pop critic. She has also written for other publications, such as The New York Times, Blender and The Village Voice. Powers is the author of Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America, a memoir; Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black & White, Body and Soul in American Music, on eroticism in American pop music; and Piece by Piece, co-authored with Tori Amos.
Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud is a book by the German philosopher and social critic Herbert Marcuse, in which the author proposes a non-repressive society, attempts a synthesis of the theories of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud, and explores the potential of collective memory to be a source of disobedience and revolt and point the way to an alternative future. Its title alludes to Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents (1930). The 1966 edition has an added "political preface".
Craig Chester is an American actor, writer, and screenwriter.
Miriam Leslie was an American publisher and author. She was the wife of Frank Leslie and the heir to his publishing business, which she developed into a paying concern from a state of precarious indebtedness. After her husband's death, she changed her own name to his, Frank Leslie. She made Carrie Chapman Catt a residuary legatee of her estate, to support enfranchising women. The activist established the Leslie Woman Suffrage Commission for this purpose.
Why Is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality is a 1997 book about the evolution of human sexuality by the biologist Jared Diamond.
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Esther Lachmann was the most famous of the 19th-century French courtesans. A notable investor and architecture patron, and a collector of jewels, she had a personality so hard-bitten that she was described as the "one great courtesan who appears to have had no redeeming feature". Count Horace de Viel-Castel, a society chronicler, called her "the queen of kept women, the sovereign of her race".
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Woman Hating: A Radical Look at Sexuality is the debut nonfiction book by American radical feminist writer and activist Andrea Dworkin. It was first published in 1974 by E. P. Dutton.
Sherry M. Thomas is an American novelist of young adult fantasy, historical romance, and contemporary romance. She has won multiple awards including the Romance Writers of America RITA Award for Best Historical Romance for Not Quite a Husband in 2010 and His at Night in 2011.
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Susan Ackerman is an American Hebrew Bible scholar. She is Preston H. Kelsey Professor of Religion, Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, where she has taught since 1990. Before coming to Dartmouth she taught at the University of Arizona and Winthrop College in South Carolina. She specializes in the religion of ancient Israel and the religions of Israel's neighbors, especially women's religious history.
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