Female Agencies And Subjectivities In Film And Television

This volume provides an overview of the landscape of mediated female agencies and subjectivities in the last decade. In three sections, the book covers the films of women directors, television shows featuring women in lead roles, and the representational struggles of women in cultural context, with a special focus on changes in the transformative power of narratives and images across genres and platforms. This collection derives from the editors’ multi-year experiences as scholars and practitioners in the field of film and television. It is an effort that aims to describe and understand female agencies and subjectivities across screen narratives, gather scholars from around the world to generate timely discussions, and inspire fellow researchers and practitioners of film and television.

Winner of the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies Best Book Prize 2018 Since the 1980s the number of women regularly directing films has increased significantly in most Western countries; in France, Claire Denis and Catherine Breillat have joined Agnès Varda in gaining international renown, while British directors Lynne Ramsay and Andrea Arnold have forged award-winning careers in feature film. This new volume in the “Thinking Cinema” series draws on feminist philosophers and theorists from Simone de Beauvoir on to offer readings of a range of the most important and memorable of these films from the 1990s and 2000s, focusing as it does so on how the films convey women's lives and identities. Mainstream entertainment cinema traditionally distorts the representation of women, objectifying their bodies, minimizing their agency, and avoiding the most important questions about how cinema can "do justice" to female subjectivity. Kate Ince suggests that the films of independent women directors are progressively redressing the balance, reinvigorating both the narratives and the formal ambitions of European cinema. Ince uses feminist philosophers to interpret such films as Sex Is Comedy, Morvern Callar, White Material, and Fish Tank anew, suggesting that a philosophical understanding of female subjectivity as embodied and ethical should underpin future feminist film study.

Female Agency and Documentary Strategies centres on how self-portraiture and contemporary documentary manifestations such as blogging and the prevalent usage of social media shape and inform female subjectivities and claims to truth.

This book explores how television in the global South is ‘future-proofing’ its continued relevance, addressing its commercial, social and political viability in a constantly changing information ecosystem. The chapter contributions in the book are drawn from countries in East, South and West Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, specially selected for their illustrative potential of the key issues addressed in the book. Scholarly attention on television in the global South has largely been limited to studying evolving television formats with broader structural issues covered almost entirely by industry reports. Major gaps remain in terms of understanding how television in the global South is changing within the context of the significant technological developments and what this means for television’s future(s). The chapters reflect on these futures, not in the sense of predicting what these might be, but rather anticipating important areas of intellection. The contributors contend that much of the scholarship on the global South, by scholars from the South, is often stilted by a reluctance to anticipate. This failure leads to a largely reactionary scholarship, constantly oppositional, and unable to recentre conversations on the South. This volume finds intellectual incentive in this urgent need to anticipate, hence its particular focus on television futures. Taking television in the global South as an important cultural and political barometer, the book seeks to explore how television in the global South is adapting to the rampant technological changes and processes of globalisation.

New essays and creative explorations of the friendship, milieu, and writings of Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf.

Drawing especially on the encounters and relationships that defined her exceptional career, The Sustainable Legacy of Agnès Varda outlines a sustainable legacy for the celebrated director and visual artist. Over nine chapters, it unpacks how creation, connection, and environment form the core of Varda's artistry, which centers foremost on relationships with her family, with other artists, even with passersby she would meet in her travels around the world. Also celebrating her feminist legacy, the chapters cover a wide range, from the classic Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962) to documentaries The Beaches of Agnès (2008) and Faces Places (2017) as well as selected art installations. The book's final section is dedicated to teaching Varda's work; here, ten scholars from around the world consider how Varda's art and feminist pedagogies offer unique ways to bring crucial concepts into the classroom. By seeking a sustainable praxis to discuss and teach Varda's work, and by making pedagogical concerns an explicit part of this approach, this book argues that Varda's insights about the nature of creative work will inspire new generations of viewers and audiences.

This edited volume presents ground-breaking empirical research on the media in political transition in Tunisia, Turkey and Morocco. Focusing on developments in the wake of the region’s upheavals in 2011, it offers a new theoretical framework for understanding mediascapes in the confessional and hybrid-authoritarian systems of the Middle East. In this book, media scholars focus on three themes: the media’s structure as an expression of governance, the media’s function as a reflection of the market, and the media’s agency in communicating between power and the public. The result is a unique addition to the literature on two counts. Firstly, analysis of similar players, issues and processes in each country produces a thematically consistent comparative assessment of the media’s role across the southern Mediterranean region. The first cross-country comparison of specific media practices in the Middle East, it covers issues such as women in talk shows, media’s relationship with surveillance, and comparative practices of media regulation. Secondly, actualising the idea that media reflects the society that produces it, the studies here draw on field data to lay the foundations for a new theory of media, Values and Status Negotiation (VSN), which evolved from the region’s unique characteristics and practices, and offers an alternative to prevailing Western-centric approaches to media analysis. Media and Politics in the Southern Mediterranean will appeal to students and scholars of politics, sociology, Media Studies, Cultural Studies and Middle Eastern Studies.

Since the 1980s the number of women regularly directing films has increased significantly in most Western countries: in France, Claire Denis and Catherine Breillat have joined Agnes Varda in gaining international renown, while British directors Lynne Ramsay and Andrea Arnold have forged award-winning careers in feature film. This new volume in the Thinking Cinema series draws on feminist theorists and critics from Simone de Beauvoir on to offer readings of a range of the most important and memorable of these films from the 1990s and 2000s, focusing as it does so on how the films convey women's lives and identities. Mainstream entertainment cinema traditionally distorts the representation of women, objectifying their bodies, minimizing their agency, and avoiding the most important questions about how cinema can 'do justice' to female subjectivity: Kate Ince suggests that the films of independent women directors are progressively redressing the balance, and thereby reinvigorating both the narratives and the formal ambitions of European cinema. Ince uses feminist philosophers to cast a new veil over such films as Sex Is Comedy, Morvern Callar, White Material, and Fish Tank; and includes a timeline ofdevelopments in women's film-making and feminist film theory from 1970 to 2011.