Film Lecture on Feminism and Jane Campion

The Feminist Gestures of Jane Campion:  Enjoyment, Lacan, and Female Passion

The films of Jane Campion are filled with female characters who follow their own passions.  They may not appear to be revolutionary passions, but the characters’ dedication to these passions creates a disturbance in the social order, which in turn reveals the inconsistencies in the symbolic fictions that circulate around gender, family, and law. Following the unravelling of these fictions allows Campion to delve into the role that enjoyment plays in the social structure, especially the patriarchy.

Hilary Neroni is Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of Vermont. She is the author of  The Subject of Torture (Columbia, 2015), Feminist Film Theory and Cléo from 5 to 7 (Bloomsbury Press, 2016), and The Violent Woman (SUNY Press, 2005).  She has also published numerous essays on issues such as female directors, expressions of contemporary ideology on television, and fantasy in the documentary form.  A reception will follow the lecture.