The Abyssal Womb: Queer Spectatorship and Abjection in Horror Cinema

Location

Science Center, A209

Document Type

Presentation

Start Date

4-26-2013 4:00 PM

End Date

4-26-2013 5:00 PM

Abstract

This project is the first section of my interdisciplinary cinema studies/gender, sexuality, and feminist studies capstone. Here I examine depictions of women in horror that specifically draw from the archetype of the archaic, abject, parthenogenetic mother. By engaging with psychoanalytic and feminist film theory, I explore the possibilities of a subversive queer spectatorship strategy through deliberate identification with the monstrous female “Other” in the films The Wicker Man (1973) and The Descent (2005). The second part of my capstone, which I am working on this semester with a grant from the Cinema Studies Program, is a short feminist horror film.

Notes

Session III, Panel 15: The Bourgeois, the Bicep, and the Abject: Anomalous Gazes in Painting, Sculpture, and Cinema
Moderator: Erik Inglis, Associate Professor of Art History

Major

Cinema Studies; Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies

Advisor(s)

Geoff Pingree, Cinema Studies
Meredith Raimondo, Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies

Project Mentor(s)

Meredith Raimondo, Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies

April 2013

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS
 
Apr 26th, 4:00 PM Apr 26th, 5:00 PM

The Abyssal Womb: Queer Spectatorship and Abjection in Horror Cinema

Science Center, A209

This project is the first section of my interdisciplinary cinema studies/gender, sexuality, and feminist studies capstone. Here I examine depictions of women in horror that specifically draw from the archetype of the archaic, abject, parthenogenetic mother. By engaging with psychoanalytic and feminist film theory, I explore the possibilities of a subversive queer spectatorship strategy through deliberate identification with the monstrous female “Other” in the films The Wicker Man (1973) and The Descent (2005). The second part of my capstone, which I am working on this semester with a grant from the Cinema Studies Program, is a short feminist horror film.