This book investigates how Josephine Baker’s performance and public persona functioned as a critical site for the intersection of modernist aesthetics, racial identity, and the philosophical obsession with the 'pure surface' at the turn of the twentieth century. Anne Anlin Cheng, a professor of English and Comparative Literature, utilizes a multidisciplinary framework to analyze Baker not merely as a performer, but as a central figure whose work interrogated the boundaries between human skin, art, architecture, and machinery. By examining the theatricalization of Black skin, the author argues that Baker’s aesthetic choices were deeply embedded in the broader technological and artistic shifts of the modern era.

Scholars and critics frequently cite this work as a significant intervention in the study of modernism and racial representation. The text is noted for its dense, rigorous theoretical prose that challenges traditional biographical approaches to iconic figures.