The Varda Variations: (Re)introductions of the Auteure in Documenteur and Beyond

If I’m no good at pretending to be a man and no good at being young, I might just as well start pretending that I am an old woman. I am not sure that anybody has invented old women yet; but it might be worth trying. — Ursula K. Le Guin, “Introducing Myself,” The Wave […]

What’s Not to Touch: Jane Campion’s Intimacies

“Poetry should surprise by a fine excess…and appear almost a remembrance,” the English Romantic poet John Keats wrote to his publisher John Taylor in February 1818, three years before Keats’ death at 25 from tuberculosis, when he still believed he had not written a single immortal thing to make his friends proud. That fall, Keats […]

“Die to Yourself”: The 21st Century Feminist Crime Drama’s Dream of Justice

“Thirteen bodies, all female, 11 white, two Asian-looking, all between the ages of maybe 20, 30, all very dead.” “If they were alive, they’d be illegals and that would mean Immigration. But they’re dead, so they’re cargo.” This exchange between two cops on The Wire epitomizes a particular strain of sexism common to contemporary crime […]