Vanishing Women: Magic, Film, and Feminism

Karen Redrobe

Published by Duke University Press 2003

Vanishing Women

Magic, Film, and Feminism

Karen Redrobe

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822384373

Overview
Contents

About this book

Disappearing women as a persistent trope from nineteenth-century magic through contemporary theory, film, and psychoanalysis.

Author / Editor information

Karen Redrobe (formerly Beckman) is Elliot and Roslyn Jaffe Professor of Film Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

Reviews

“Karen Beckman has written an eye-opening book, one that travels across a richly diverse group of texts in order to reveal the vanishing woman’s historical underpinnings and cultural work.”—Sabrina Barton

“This highly original and beautifully crafted study explores feminist film theory, psychoanalysis, and cinema through a cultural history of the vanishing woman figure—from nineteenth-century prestidigitation and mediumship to early cinema and across the twentieth century. In positing the vanishing woman as a significant corrective to feminist film theory's staple readings of woman as ‘absence or lack,’ or hypervisible spectacle, this book offers a fascinating and provocative treatment of enduring discussions that have shaped this field.”—Sharon Willis

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vi
List of Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	viii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Vanishing women
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 Surplus Bodies, VanishingWomen: Conjuring, Imperialism, and the Rhetoric of Disappearance, 1851–1901 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
2 Insubstantial Media: Ectoplasm, Exposure, and the Stillbirth of Film Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	61
3 Mother Knows Best: Magic and Matricide Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	93
4 Violent Vanishings: Hitchcock, Harlan, and the Politics of Prestidigitation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
5 Shooting Stars, Vanishing Comets: Bette Davis and Cinematic Fading Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	153
Afterword Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	189
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
Works Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	219
Filmography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	233
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 254

eBook

Published: April 1, 2003
ISBN: 9780822384373