Researching Women in Silent Cinema, edited with Monica dall'Asta & Lucia Tralli, University of Bologna
Board of referees:
Richard Abel (University of Michigan), Kay Armatage (University of Toronto), Janet Bergstrom (University of California, Los Angeles), Giorgio Bertellini (University of Michigan), Elaine Burrows (Women's Film and Television History Network UK/Ireland), Vicki Callahan (USC), Sumiko Higashi (Professor Emerita, SUNY Brockport), Sabine Lenk (DOMITOR), Jill Matthews (Australian National University, Canberra), David Mayer (University of Manchester), Giuliana Muscio (University of Padua), Jacqueline Reich (Fordham University, New York), Masha Salazkina (University of Michigan), Matthew Solomon (University of Michigan), Shelley Stamp (University of California, Santa Cruz) Virginia Wexman (University of Illinois, Chicago)
First Lady Helen Taft, behind the camera, with silent movie star May Allison, around 1910.
Bain News Service, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.
This anthology exposes the richness and variety of interests that motivate feminist film research today. With keynote contributions from:
Christine Gledhill, University of Sunderland
Heide Schlüpmann, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitat, Frankfurt
Jane M. Gaines, Columbia University
Exploring women's contribution to silent cinema, scholars from across the globe address questions of performance, nationality, industry, technology, labor, and theory of feminist historiography.
A particular focus on acting and the agency of the actress is shared across the volume.
The fundamental figure of the actress links multiple threads of scholarship, traversing different films and national cinemas. Alice Guy, Asta Nielsen, Florence Turner, Lois Weber, Mary Pickford, Esfir' Shub, Pearl White, Vera Karalli, Aleksandra Khokhlova, Elsa Lanchester, Louise Fazenda, Sarah Bernhardt, Gemma Bellincioni, Angelina Buracci, Yin Mingzhu, and Leni Riefensthal: these are but some of the names that are encountered across the essays in the collection.
New findings are exposed and new research perspectives are opened through these and other figures, allowing us to uncover original ways of thinking about women's visibility and agency on film.
Published with the support of:
