Annette Kuhn

Last updated

Annette Kuhn
Born
Annette Frieda Kuhn

England, United Kingdom
Alma materUniversity of Sheffield,
University of London
Occupations
  • Author
  • cultural historian
  • educator
  • researcher
  • editor
  • feminist
Notable workThe Oxford Dictionary of Film Studies

Annette Frieda Kuhn, FBA is a British author, cultural historian, educator, researcher, editor and feminist. She is known for her work in screen studies, visual culture, film history and cultural memory. She is Professor and Research Fellow in Film Studies at Queen Mary University of London.

Contents

Career

Kuhn earned a bachelor's degree in 1969 and master's degree in 1975 in sociology at the University of Sheffield. While at Sheffield, she served as the Research Officer at the Sheffield Students' Union, during which period she worked on a campaign for a University crèche. Kuhn also co-convened the Sheffield University Women's Studies Group, organising public seminars and film screenings. While a student in the early 1970s, she co-authored a survey of British university graduates with Anne Poole which supported the notion that first children among several have higher educational achievement than their siblings. [1] [2] During the same period, she also co-authored a second survey with Anne Poole and R. Keith Kelsall, published as "Graduates: The Sociology of the Elite", which looked at women graduates and their careers, or lack thereof. [3] [4]

She co-edited Feminism and Materialism (1978) with AnnMarie Wolpe, was part of the founding editorial collective of Feminist Review (1979- ) and was a member of the women's photography group Second Sight. [5]

In the mid-1970s, Kuhn began writing, teaching and publishing in film studies, often from a feminist standpoint. Her books included Women's Pictures: Feminism and Cinema (1982, rev. ed. 1994), [6] [7] in which Kuhn defined a variant of fictional realism as "new women's cinema" which targeted a working woman audience of the mid-1970s; [8] : 175  and The Power of the Image: Essays on Representation and Sexuality (1985). [9] Kuhn co-edited The Women's Companion to International Film (1990) with Susannah Radstone. [10] She taught classes in adult and higher education in both the UK and the USA. [11]

Kuhn served on the editorial board of the journal Screen from 1976 to 1985 and rejoined the journal as a co-editor on its move to Oxford University Press in 1989, standing down in 2014. In the late 1970s, she joined five other women in forming a feminist forum which roundly criticized the fashion press and their perpetuation of a stereotype in women's clothing. [12] [13] In 1986 she completed a PhD on the history of film censorship at the University of London. From 1984 to the early 1990s she was a commissioning editor for 'Questions for Feminism', a series of socialist-feminist books published by Verso, and in the late 1980s worked as desk editor in Verso's editorial office in London. Some documents from the early phase of Kuhn's career are lodged in the Women's Library at the London School of Economics. [14]

Teaching

As lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths College (1974–76), Kuhn taught classes on women and the family and the sexual division of labour.

In 1989 Kuhn joined the University of Glasgow as a lecturer in Film and Television and was promoted to Reader in Film and Television Studies in 1991, in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies. [15] She moved to Lancaster University in 1998 as Reader in Cultural Research and was promoted to Professor of Film Studies in 2000. In 2006, Kuhn moved to Queen Mary University of London since 2006 and is now Professor and Research Fellow in Film Studies. [16] Since 2002 she has served on the Advisory Board of the Raphael Samuel History Centre (University of East London/Birkbeck University of London) and on the Education and Culture Committee of Phoenix Cinema (Finchley, London) since 2009.

Kuhn has held visiting professorships at the University of Iowa, the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Masaryk University and Stockholm University; and fellowships at the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University, Macquarie University, and the Five Colleges Women's Studies Research Center at Mount Holyoke College. Kuhn has delivered keynote lectures, invited talks and workshops also in Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, South Africa, Spain and Switzerland. Her writings have been translated into at least ten languages.

Notable works

Since the early 1990s, Kuhn has researched, and written widely on, cinemagoing and memory, in work arising from a large-scale project called "Cinema Culture in 1930s Britain", which she directed and which involved gathering a considerable body of questionnaire and depth-interview material from several hundred surviving cinemagoers of the 1930s. The project's findings have been discussed in a number of radio programmes, [17] [18] [19] [20] as well as in books (in particular An Everyday Magic: Cinema and Cultural Memory), articles, chapters and conference papers; and it has become a significant reference point for current research and community activity around cinema memory and histories of film reception. Most of the materials gathered in the course of the 1930s project are now part of Lancaster University Library's Special Collections, and are available there for consultation by other researchers. [21]

Annette Kuhn has grouped scholarly work on women's genres into two camps—one that emphasizes contexts (often TV studies), and one that emphasizes texts (often film studies).

Julie D'Acci,Defining Women: Television and the Case of Cagney & Lacey [8] : 171 

Concurrently, Kuhn has inquired into photography and cultural memory, with a particular interest in the uses of and meanings attaching to family photographs, conducting research and workshops, giving talks and producing writings on the subject. Her book Family Secrets is widely cited and continues to be drawn on by writers and artists, especially feminists, conducting autoethnographic work with personal photographs, as well as by readers inspired to conduct memory work with their own family albums. [22] [23] [24]

The Oxford Dictionary of Film Studies (2012), which Kuhn co-authored with her Queen Mary University of London colleague Guy Westwell, was several years in the making. It is grounded in a systematic overview of the discipline, both historically and as it is currently taught and researched, with the aim of producing an inclusive map of the field that would eventually generate the topics addressed in the dictionary, permit assessment of each headword and entry in light of its place in the discipline's overall architecture, supply a picture of the interconnections between various areas of inquiry, and generate a framework for cross-references that would allow users to follow personal paths through the dictionary and make their own discoveries about the discipline. In both its print and online versions, the Dictionary is widely used in screen studies teaching at all levels, as well as by film critics and film-lovers. [25] [26] [27]

Awards

In 1994, Kuhn was awarded a Fulbright Senior Research Scholarship to study six months at Mount Holyoke College in the Five College Women's Studies program in order to complete work on the Family Secrets project, research for "The Daughter’s Lament: Memory Work and Productions of the Self". [28]

In 2004, she was elected to the Fellowship of the British Academy, and in 2016 to Membership of the European Academy (Academia Europaea). [29] [30]

The Annette Kuhn Essay Award was established by Screen in 2014, in recognition of Kuhn's outstanding contribution to Screen and her wider commitment to the development of screen studies and screen theory. [31]

Selected works

Related Research Articles

Feminist film theory is a theoretical film criticism derived from feminist politics and feminist theory influenced by second-wave feminism and brought about around the 1970s in the United States. With the advancements in film throughout the years feminist film theory has developed and changed to analyse the current ways of film and also go back to analyse films past. Feminists have many approaches to cinema analysis, regarding the film elements analyzed and their theoretical underpinnings.

Speculative and science fiction writers have often addressed the social, political, technological, and biological consequences of pregnancy and reproduction through the exploration of possible futures or alternative realities.

Michelle Citron is a film, video and multimedia artist, scholar and author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Griselda Pollock</span>

Griselda Frances Sinclair Pollock is an art historian and cultural analyst of international, postcolonial feminist studies in visual arts and visual culture. Since 1977, Pollock has been an influential scholar of modern art, avant-garde art, postmodern art, and contemporary art. She is a major influence in feminist theory, feminist art history, and gender studies. She is renowned for her innovative feminist approaches to art history which aim to deconstruct the lack of appreciation and importance of women in art as other than objects for the male gaze.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pam Cook</span>

Pam Cook is Professor Emerita in Film at the University of Southampton. She was educated at Sir William Perkins's School, Chertsey, Surrey and Birmingham University, where she was taught by Stuart Hall, Richard Hoggart, Malcolm Bradbury, and David Lodge. Along with Laura Mulvey and Claire Johnston, she was a pioneer of 1970s Anglo-American feminist film theory. Her collaboration with Claire Johnston on the work of Hollywood film director Dorothy Arzner provoked debate among feminist film scholars over the following decades.

Meaghan Morris is an Australian scholar of cultural studies. She is currently a Professor of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney.

Celine Parreñas Shimizu is a filmmaker and film scholar. She is well known for her work on race, sexuality and representations. She is currently Dean of the Arts Division at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Ginette Vincendeau is a French-born British-based academic who is a professor of film studies at King's College London.

<i>Zohra</i> (film) 1922 film by Albert Samama-Chikli

Zohra is a 1922 silent 35 mm short film from Tunisia by Albert Samama ('Chikly'). It was the first indigenous North African film production. The movie script was written by Chikly's daughter, Haydée Chikly, who also edited and starred as the key female protagonist in the film.

Riddles of the Sphinx is a 1977 British experimental drama film written, directed and produced by Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen and starring Dinah Stabb, Merdelle Jordine and Riannon Tise.

E. Ann Kaplan is an American professor, author, and director. She currently teaches English at the Stony Brook State University of New York, and is the founder and director of The Humanities Institute at Stony Brook University. She coined the term "“Future-Tense Trauma Cinema” for a select group of films, a sub-set of the Science Fiction film, that focus on human and natural causes of complete social collapse instead of, as in standard Sci-Fi, displacing cultural anxieties into allegories of aliens invading planet Earth from elsewhere."" She is also one of the precursors of the Madonna studies.

Jackie Stacey is a feminist film theorist. She has contributed to the fields of cultural studies, ethnography, and feminist film theory, particularly in regards to star studies and examining the spectatorial response to film. She is a currently professor of Media and Cultural Studies and the director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Arts and Languages (CIDRAL) at the University of Manchester. She previously worked in the Department of Sociology at Lancaster University as a professor of women's studies and cultural studies. She has served as co-editor of Screen since 1994. As an author, she has been largely collected by libraries.

In film studies, historical poetics is a scholarly approach to studying film, which David Bordwell outlined in his book Making Meaning (1989). Poetics studies the text itself rather than its production, reception or cultural significance and it can therefore be seen as a logical first step - though expressly not the last step - in terms of understanding how a narrative text works.

Christina Gerhardt is an author, academic and journalist. She has written on a range of subjects, including the environment, film and critical theory. She has been the Currie C. and Thomas A. Barron Visiting Professor of Environment and the Humanities at the High Meadows Environmental Institute at Princeton University, and held visiting positions at Harvard University, the Free University of Berlin, Columbia University and University of California at Berkeley, where she taught previously and is now a permanent Senior Fellow. She has been awarded grants by the Fulbright Commission, the DAAD, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Newberry Library. Her journalism has been published in The Guardian, Grist, The Nation, Orion, The Progressive and Sierra Magazine, and other outlets.

Finlandia is a 1922 Finnish documentary and propaganda film.

Jeni Thornley is an Australian feminist documentary filmmaker, writer, film valuer and research associate at University of Technology, Sydney. Since leaving her job as Manager of the Women's Film Fund at the Australian Film Commission in 1986, Thornley has worked as an independent writer, director and producer at Anandi Films. She has fulfilled teaching roles at UTS and the Australian School for Film and Television. Thornley is currently an Honorary Research Associate in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at UTS. She is also a consultant film valuer for the Cultural Gifts Program, Dept of Communications and the Arts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beti Ellerson</span> American women activist

Beti Ellerson is an American filmmaker and activist particularly active in African cinema. She established the Centre for the Study and Research of African Women in Cinema.

<i>Astero</i> (1929 film) 1929 Greek silent film

Astero is a Greek silent film directed by Dimitris Gaziadis in 1929. The film is considered a romantic fustanella film and was filmed in a rural Greek setting. The fustanella was traditional Greek attire. It is a pleated skirt-like garment that is also referred to as a kilt and was initially featured in the film Golfo. Dimitris Gaziadis wrote the screenplay in collaboration with Orestis Laskos. Laskos also wrote and directed the 1931 Greek silent film Daphnis and Chloe which was also filmed in an agricultural setting. The filming of Astero took place between 8-31 of March in 1929. A significant part of the filming took place in areas of the Peloponnese such as Mount Helmos, the Waters of Stygos, the Monastery of Mega Spilaio, the Diakopto–Kalavryta railway, Zachlorou, Mesorrougi, Solos, and Elatophyto.

References

  1. ↑ Edens, B. David (8 November 1973). "First-Born Has Best Chance of Going to College". The Word and Way. Jefferson City, Missouri. 110 (44): 14. Retrieved 23 June 2018– via Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra).
  2. ↑ "First-Born Are Achievers". Food—Living. The Philadelphia Inquirer. Chicago Tribune Service. 9 May 1973. p. D1. Retrieved 23 June 2018– via Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra).
  3. ↑ Poole, Anne (7 March 1972). "What do women graduates really want?". Education Guardian. The Guardian. London. p. 17. Retrieved 23 June 2018– via Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra).
  4. ↑ Hartley, Alec (17 February 1972). "A question of degree". The Guardian. London. p. 9. Retrieved 23 June 2018– via Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra).
  5. ↑ The other group members were Frances Borzello, Jill Pack and Cassandra Wedd; see Kuhn, The Power of the Image: Essays on Representation and Sexuality, pg 9-10.
  6. 1 2 Stewart, Meg (20 November 1982). "The Celluloid Feminists". The Sydney Morning Herald. Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. p. 37. Retrieved 23 June 2018– via Newspapers.com (Publisher Edition). The book is for film theorists and critics.
  7. 1 2 Blacker, Irwin R. (26 September 1982). "Screenplay (column)". Los Angeles Times. p. 7. Retrieved 23 June 2018– via Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra). Since the beginning of the feminist movement, the market has seen several good books on the subject of women and film. (This) sadly is not one of them.
  8. 1 2 3 D'Acci, Julie (1994). Defining Women . The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN   0807821322 – via Internet Archive.
  9. 1 2 Brunner, Diane (20 November 1993). The Knower of the Known: Exploring Issues of Violence against Women in Popular Music. Annual Meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English (83rd, Pittsburgh, PA, November 17–22, 1993). p. 3 – via Internet Archive.
  10. 1 2 French, Philip (25 November 1990). "Beauty, beasts, celluloid flops". Movies. The Observer. London. p. 10. Retrieved 23 June 2018– via Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra).
  11. ↑ Humm, Maggie (1997). "Annette Kuhn and materialist criticism". Feminism and Film (1st ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. pp. 26–28. ISBN   978-0-7486-0900-0.
  12. ↑ Neustatter, Angela (25 July 1978). "Clothes Encounter". Guardian Women. The Guardian. London. p. 7. Retrieved 23 June 2018– via Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra).
  13. ↑ Naish, Julia; Barrett, Michele; Wilson, Elizabeth; Wolpe, Ann-Marie; Kuhn, Annette; Owen, Ursula (26 July 1978). "Fashioned after our own image". Guardian Women. The Guardian. London. Retrieved 23 June 2018– via Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra).
  14. ↑ "7ANK - Papers of Annette Kuhn". Twl-calm.library.lse.ac.uk. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  15. ↑ Macnab, Gillian (12 July 1994). "University of Glasgow, Research Fellow, Cinema Culture in 1930's Britain". Education Guardian: Research & Research Awards. The Guardian. London. p. 33. Retrieved 23 June 2018– via Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra).
  16. ↑ "Annette Kuhn, BA (Econ), MA, PhD Professor and Research Fellow in Film Studies". Profile. Quen Mary University of London. Retrieved 23 November 2019.
  17. ↑ "Radio 4 - Woman's Hour -Cinema in the Thirties". BBC . Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  18. ↑ "BBC Radio 4 Extra - Where Were You When Bambi's Mother Was Shot?". Bbc.co.uk. 29 March 2017. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  19. ↑ "BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, Going to the Flicks, Episode 1". Bbc.co.uk. 11 January 2015. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  20. ↑ "Going to the Flicks". Archived from the original on 22 December 2016. Retrieved 21 December 2016.
  21. ↑ "Cinema and culture | Library | Lancaster University". Lancaster.ac.uk. 31 January 2014. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  22. ↑ Trev Broughton (1998). "Review: Family Secrets: Acts of Memory and Imagination by Annette Kuhn". Feminist Review. 60: 135–137. JSTOR   1395564.
  23. ↑ tay (27 July 2005). "VirtualDayz: Annette Kuhn and Memory Work: Reflections on "Family Secrets"". Virtualdayz.blogspot.co.uk. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  24. ↑ "Family Ties: Reframing Memory Various Artists, Peltz Gallery, London". Aesthetica Magazine. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  25. ↑ Christopher Hirst. "Oxford Dictionary of Film Studies By Annette Kuhn & Guy Westwell" . The Independent . Archived from the original on 7 May 2022. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  26. ↑ Magerstädt, Sylvie (2015). "Oxford Dictionary of Film Studies by Annette Kuhn & Guy Westwell (review)". Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal. 45 (1): 111–112. Project MUSE   589173.
  27. ↑ Annette Kuhn; Guy Westwell (21 June 2012). A Dictionary of Film Studies (Oxford Quick Reference). ISBN   9780199587261.
  28. ↑ Fulbright Scholars Program, 1994-95 Directory (PDF). Washington DC: Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program. 1994. p. 33.
  29. ↑ "Professor Annette Kuhn | British Academy". Britac.ac.uk. 9 April 2015. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  30. ↑ "Academy of Europe: Kuhn Annette". Ae-info.org. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  31. ↑ "University of Glasgow - Services A-Z - Screen - Essay Award". Gla.ac.uk. Retrieved 23 June 2017.
  32. ↑ "Royalty Check". People. Observer Saturday. London. 4 March 1990. p. 53. Retrieved 23 June 2018– via Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra).
  33. 1 2 King, Geoff; Krzywinska, Tanya (2000). Science Fiction Cinema: From Outerspace to Cyberspace . Short Cuts: Introductions To Film Studies. Great Britain: Wallflower Publishing Limited. pp.  125. ISBN   9781903364031 – via Internet Archive.
  34. ↑ "Queen of the 'B's — Ida Lupino Behind the Camera". Books: Short Cuts. The Observer Review. London. 10 September 1995. p. 17. Retrieved 23 June 2018– via Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra).
  35. ↑ "A Dictionary of Film Studies - Annette Kuhn; Guy Westwell - Oxford University Press". Ukcatalogue.oup.com. Retrieved 10 September 2016.
  36. ↑ "Little Madnesses: Winnicott, Transitional Phenomena & Cultural Experience". ibtauris.com. Retrieved 10 September 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.