Gender-Based Violence in Latin American and Iberian Cinemas rethinks the intersection between violence and its gendered representation.

This is a groundbreaking contribution to the international debate on the cinematic construction of gender-based violence. With essays from diverse cultural backgrounds and institutions, this collection analyzes a wide range of films across Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula. The volume makes use of varied perspectives including feminist, postcolonial, and queer theory to consider such issues as the visual configuration of power and inequality, the objectification and the invisibilization of women's and LGBTQ subjects' resistance, the role of female film-makers in transforming hegemonic accounts of violence, and the subversion of common tropes of gendered violence.

This will be of significance for students and scholars in Latin American and Iberian studies, as well as in film studies, cultural studies, and gender and queer studies.

About the Author

Rebeca Maseda Garcia is Professor of Spanish at the University of Alaska Anchorage (U.S.A.), where she teaches on gender violence and cinema in Spain, historical memory and the Civil War, and contemporary Latin American and Iberian cinemas; her most recent work focuses on alternative ways of representing female trauma in cinema that respond to an ethical witnessing paradigm. Publications include Gender and Violence in Spanish Culture: From Vulnerability to Accountability (2018), Ensayo sobre la contradiccion: Virginia Woolf en pantalla (2006), "Mood, Silence and Ghostly Words: Female Trauma in Isabel Coixet's The Secret Life of Words", and "Songs of Pain: Female Active Survivors in Claudia Llosa's The Milk of Sorrow". She is an associate investigator on a project on the re-signification of women as victims in popular culture.

Maria Jose Gamez Fuentes is Professor of Gender and Media at Universitat Jaume I of Castellon (Spain), and member of the Institute of Feminist Research and the Interuniversity Institute of Social Development and Peace at her home university. She has been a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Columbia University, among others. Her work focusses on feminist theory, cultural violence, and communication towards social change; her publications include Re-writing Women as Victims: From Theory to Practice (co-edited with S. Nunez and E. Gomez, 2019) and Gender and Violence in Spanish Culture: From Vulnerability to Accountability (co-edited with Rebeca Maseda, 2018). Currently she is the principal researcher of research and development projects on the resignification of women as victims and on ethical witnessing.

Barbara Zecchi is a professor and Director of the Interdepartmental Program in Film Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (U.S.A.), and Associate Member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of Spain. She has published and lectured widely on European and Latin American cinemas, feminist film theory, film adaptation theory, gender studies, aging studies, and video-graphic criticism. In addition to video-graphic essays and journal articles, she is the author or editor of numerous volumes including La pantalla sexuada (2015), Desenfocadas (2014), and Tras las lentes de Isabel Coixet: cine, compromiso y feminismo (2017). Zecchi is vice-director of the international research network "CinemAGEnder", and founder of "Gynocine", a digital humanities project on the production of women filmmakers around the globe.

Reviews

"This timely and well-coordinated collection of essays offers a set of politically urgent and highly original readings of important films from Portugal, Spain and Latin America that make us readers re-think what we thought we knew about gender and violence, or its depiction on the screen."

- Santiago Fouz Hernandez, Professor, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Durham University

"This is an important book written and edited by leading experts in their field. The rich edited collection examines film and gender violence within specific systemic cultural contexts privileging female agency and resistance."

- Deborah Shaw, Professor of Film and Screen Studies, University of Portsmouth

Book Information
ISBN 9781138349476
Author Rebeca Maseda Garcia
Format Hardback
Page Count 202
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 570g