Film History

Abstract

Research Article| April 01 2018 Film History Maggie Hennefeld Maggie Hennefeld Maggie Hennefeld is an assistant professor of cultural studies and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She is the author of Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes (Columbia University Press, 2018). Her articles and criticism have appeared in differences, Discourse, Film History, Screen, Ms. Magazine, and Camera Obscura. She was the coeditor of a special issue of Feminist Media Histories on “Gender and Comedy” (spring 2017) and coeditor of two forthcoming books, The Abject Objection: Encounters with Graphic and Comedic Violence (Duke University Press, 2019) and Unwatchable (Rutgers University Press, 2018). Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Feminist Media Histories (2018) 4 (2): 77–83. https://doi.org/10.1525/fmh.2018.4.2.77 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Maggie Hennefeld; Film History. Feminist Media Histories 1 April 2018; 4 (2): 77–83. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/fmh.2018.4.2.77 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentFeminist Media Histories Search Keywords: archives, feminism, film history, gender, social politics Feminist film history involves the ongoing rewriting of the past through the lens of gender/sexual difference and from the perspective of women, whose work is too often erased or sidelined in dominant narratives of the history of cinema. Feminist film history is often seen as having emerged as an academic subfield in the mid- to late 1970s, alongside a general “historical turn” by which film scholars came to emphasize archival research and historical contextualization over high theory and semiotic analysis.1 However, this founding myth conceals the profound degree of imbrication between feminist film history and feminist film theory, which has been vital to the field since the inception of feminist film studies. In her canonical essay “Women's Cinema as Counter-Cinema” (1973), Claire Johnston articulates an idea of feminist film history that springs from the critical analysis and close reading of film images. Noting that early film audiences often had... You do not currently have access to this content.