Deconstruction, Feminism, Film - Paperback

by Sarah Dillon (Author)

The writings of Jacques Derrida have had a profound but complex influence on both film studies and on feminism. In the first work of its kind, Deconstruction, Feminism, Film explores the interconnections between these three fields through detailed filmic and philosophical close readings. Employing a dual feminist methodology of critique and generation, this book probes the feminist faultlines in Derrida's thought and generates original feminist insight into key concerns of contemporary film studies, including spectatorship, realism vs artifice, narrative, adaptation, auto/biography and the still. In theory and in practice, Deconstruction, Feminism, Film performs the possibilities of a new twenty-first century feminist spectatorship.

Front Jacket

'In this meticulous and welcome intervention into Derrida scholarship, Dillon creates feminist film philosophy from analyses of female-female intimacy in a range of visual forms, from autobiography and documentary film, to fiction and the photonovel. Dillon draws out these contributions to feminist film thinking through close readings that demonstrate the potential for Derridean ideas in relation to film theory and criticism, and the empowerment of the singular, embodied, spectator. This book interrogates the encounters between Derrida and film, and opens a new avenue of investigation replete with possibilities for feminist critique and creative philosophical film analysis.' Lucy Bolton, Queen Mary University of London The writings of Jacques Derrida have had a profound but complex influence on both film studies and on feminism. In the first work of its kind, Deconstruction, Feminism, Film explores the interconnections between these three fields through detailed filmic and philosophical close readings. Employing a dual feminist methodology of critique and generation, author Sarah Dillon probes the feminist faultlines in Derrida's thought and generates original feminist insight into key concerns of contemporary film studies - including spectatorship, realism vs artifice, narrative, adaptation, auto/biography and the still. In theory and in practice, Deconstruction, Feminism, Film performs the possibilities of a new twenty-first-century feminist spectatorship. Sarah Dillon is a feminist film and literary critic and theorist in the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge. Cover image: Mary Evans/Classicstock/H. Armstrong Roberts Cover design: [EUP logo] edinburghuniversitypress.com ISBN 978-1-4744-3419-5 Barcode

Author Biography

Sarah Dillon is a feminist film and literary critic and theorist in the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge. She is author of The Palimpsest: Literature, Criticism, Theory (2007), editor of David Mitchell: Critical Essays (2011), and co-editor of Maggie Gee: Critical Essays (2015). She is the General Editor of the book series Gylphi Contemporary Writers: Critical Essays, and broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio 3 and 4.