Wednesday 8 March 2017

Videographic screen media criticism by female critics, scholars and artists #InternationalWomensDay

Latest update January 14, 2018
GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (remix remixed 2013) by Laura Mulvey

Happy International Women's Day! Two of the questions Film Studies For Free's author gets asked  a lot—as a female video essayist, curator and editor/publisher—are:

  1. "Why are there so few female video essayists working on film and screen media topics?"
  2. And: "Can you please recommend some female video essayists?" 
The answer to the first question is that there aren't "so few": there are loads! And some of the very first video essayists in this field were foundational women film scholars (HINT: look above!)! Their numbers are ever-increasing, and they're a very international bunch! And the answer to the second question is YES!

Indeed, the answer to both questions is: please take a look at the below list - to which FSFF will keep adding as further names (and sample works) come to light or are recommended. If you would like to recommend a video or a video maker to add to the list, please leave a comment below. Thank you!

If you enjoy cultural interventions of the "there have always been many more than you think!" variety, here's a great one for International Women's Day, also listed below: Kelly Gallagher's The Herstory of the Female Filmmaker. Also, please, please, please check out Another Gaze's totally brilliant and beautiful interview with Laura Mulvey, with some of the most amazing insights about her work.

UPDATE (March 27, 2017): At the latest issue of [in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film and Moving Image Studies, see the related new piece by FSFF's author: “Looking at To-Be-Looked-at-ness: Feminist Videographic Criticism."



Female Video Essayists of Note in Alphabetical order by surname

FSFF also strongly recommends the following essay (including a great video) which pays great attention to the work of a good proportion of the above by Ian Garwood, "The Place of Voiceover in Academic Audiovisual Film and Television Criticism," NECSUS: European Journal of Media Studies, Autumn 2016. Thanks also to Allison de Fren, Tami Williams, Gabrielle Kelly, Marit Norway, Jason Mittell, H. Perry Horton, Adrian Martin, Adrian Garvey, Glenn Stillar, Michael Mirasol, Steve Elworth, Pablo Useros, Mark Rappaport, Deane Williams and José Sarmiento Hinojosa for their great suggestions.

1 comment:

Virginia Kuhn said...

I've got these two from an earlier collection I edited (with Victor Vitanza): http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/17.2/topoi/vitanza-kuhn/
Sarah J. Arroyo and Bahareh Alaei
Sample work: The Dancing Floor
http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/17.2/topoi/vitanza-kuhn/arroyo_alaei.html#
abstract:

bonnie lenore kyburz
Sample work: screencube
http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/17.2/topoi/vitanza-kuhn/kyburz.html#