Vanishing Women

Magic, Film, and Feminism

Nonfiction, Entertainment, Performing Arts, Film
Cover of the book Vanishing Women by Karen Redrobe, Duke University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Karen Redrobe ISBN: 9780822384373
Publisher: Duke University Press Publication: April 1, 2003
Imprint: Duke University Press Books Language: English
Author: Karen Redrobe
ISBN: 9780822384373
Publisher: Duke University Press
Publication: April 1, 2003
Imprint: Duke University Press Books
Language: English

With the help of mirrors, trap doors, elevators, photographs, and film, women vanish and return in increasingly spectacular ways throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Karen Beckman tracks the proliferation of this elusive figure, the vanishing woman, from her genesis in Victorian stage magic through her development in conjunction with photography and film. Beckman reveals how these new visual technologies projected their anxieties about insubstantiality and reproducibility onto the female body, producing an image of "woman" as utterly unstable and constantly prone to disappearance.

Drawing on cinema studies and psychoanalysis as well as the histories of magic, spiritualism, and photography, Beckman looks at particular instances of female vanishing at specific historical moments—in Victorian magic’s obsessive manipulation of female and colonized bodies, spiritualist photography’s search to capture traces of ghosts, the comings and goings of bodies in early cinema, and Bette Davis’s multiple roles as a fading female star. As Beckman places the vanishing woman in the context of feminism’s discussion of spectacle and subjectivity, she explores not only the problems, but also the political utility of this obstinate figure who hovers endlessly between visible and invisible worlds. Through her readings, Beckman argues that the visibly vanishing woman repeatedly signals the lurking presence of less immediately perceptible psychic and physical erasures, and she contends that this enigmatic figure, so ubiquitous in late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century culture, provides a new space through which to consider the relationships between visibility, gender, and agency.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

With the help of mirrors, trap doors, elevators, photographs, and film, women vanish and return in increasingly spectacular ways throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Karen Beckman tracks the proliferation of this elusive figure, the vanishing woman, from her genesis in Victorian stage magic through her development in conjunction with photography and film. Beckman reveals how these new visual technologies projected their anxieties about insubstantiality and reproducibility onto the female body, producing an image of "woman" as utterly unstable and constantly prone to disappearance.

Drawing on cinema studies and psychoanalysis as well as the histories of magic, spiritualism, and photography, Beckman looks at particular instances of female vanishing at specific historical moments—in Victorian magic’s obsessive manipulation of female and colonized bodies, spiritualist photography’s search to capture traces of ghosts, the comings and goings of bodies in early cinema, and Bette Davis’s multiple roles as a fading female star. As Beckman places the vanishing woman in the context of feminism’s discussion of spectacle and subjectivity, she explores not only the problems, but also the political utility of this obstinate figure who hovers endlessly between visible and invisible worlds. Through her readings, Beckman argues that the visibly vanishing woman repeatedly signals the lurking presence of less immediately perceptible psychic and physical erasures, and she contends that this enigmatic figure, so ubiquitous in late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century culture, provides a new space through which to consider the relationships between visibility, gender, and agency.

More books from Duke University Press

Cover of the book Religion and the Making of Nigeria by Karen Redrobe
Cover of the book Sociology and Empire by Karen Redrobe
Cover of the book Protection of Global Biodiversity by Karen Redrobe
Cover of the book Presidential Selection by Karen Redrobe
Cover of the book Theology of Money by Karen Redrobe
Cover of the book The Fetish Revisited by Karen Redrobe
Cover of the book Assimilating Asians by Karen Redrobe
Cover of the book Blood Narrative by Karen Redrobe
Cover of the book Archives of Empire by Karen Redrobe
Cover of the book Hawaiian Blood by Karen Redrobe
Cover of the book Crossroads of Freedom by Karen Redrobe
Cover of the book Backward Glances by Karen Redrobe
Cover of the book Trumpets in the Mountains by Karen Redrobe
Cover of the book Online a Lot of the Time by Karen Redrobe
Cover of the book China’s Avant-Garde Fiction by Karen Redrobe
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy