I often use Annette Kuhn's _Women's Pictures_. It offers really lucid summaries of many feminist theories and even has a glossary. Unfortunately, it's out of print (the last time I checked) but it's available used online or in libraries. Tracy Cox-Stanton Kalamazoo College Nina Martin Dr wrote: >I think Sue Thornham's work for Routledge--The Feminist Film Theory Reader >accompanied by her Passionate Detachments book--allow students a way into >contemporary feminist film issues by analyzing certain well known texts (in the >Reader) and providing cogent analysis of those texts (in Passionate >Detachments). The books work well together, and I used them for a feminist >film course for non-film academics. The work is sophisticated, but not >impenetrable. > >Dr. Nina K. Martin >Dept. of Film Studies >Emory University > > > >Quoting [log in to unmask]: > > > >>colleagues-- >> >>i write again with a question that i first asked two or three years back, >>dealing with a matter i need to address again >> >>some of my students in a first year writing course which takes cinema >>as its topic [but it's an expos course, not a cinema studies course] are >>intrigued by feminist criticism and want to do research papers on some >>aspect of that large and complex area . . . there's obviously no shortage >> >>of materials to be found, and they've successfully located a lot of very >>interesting stuff, almost all of which is virtually unintelligible >>to them . . . these are kids who know almost nothing about freud or >>marx, and have never even heard of foucault, lacan, althusser, zizek, >>raymond williams, john berger, or laura mulvey . . . such terms as >>"diegesis," "simulacrum," "apparatus," "repression," "iconicity," >>"representation," "subject position" and "the gaze" are a foreign >>language . . . >> >>these are smart and ambitious students, and welcome the challenge >>of reading difficult stuff, but it has to be stuff that they have the >>tools to decipher . . . and most of the stuff we ourselves read every >>day --stuff that may often challenge us--is simply beyond them >> >>there is work that fits the bill -- i think especially of that by molly >>haskell and marjorie rosen -- but it's pretty dated now, and in fact >>one of the reasons that it remains so readable is that it antedates the >>more intensely theoretical turns that cinema studies in general, and >>feminist theory in particular, took after the 1970s . . . because it's now >>so old i'm hesitant to recommend it -- and in any case it does not >>deal with any of the films my students care about >> >>so . . . to get to the point . . . can anyone recommend essays or books >>dealing with feminist approaches to cinema that i might in good >>conscience ask my students to read and expect them to understand >> >>many thank >> >>mike >> >>---- >>Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the >>University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu >> >> >> > >---- >Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the >University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu > > ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.ScreenSite.org