Porn Studies
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Duke University Press
Published:21st Jul '04
£28.99
Available to order, but very limited on stock - if we have issues obtaining a copy, we will let you know.
A collection of contemporary work on pornographic film and video, edited by one of the founders of the field
In her pioneering book Hard Core, Linda Williams put moving-image pornography on the map of contemporary scholarship with her analysis of the most popular and enduring of all film and video genres. Now, fifteen years later, she showcases the next generation of critical thinking about pornography and signals new directions for study and teaching. Porn Studies resists the tendency to situate pornography as the outer limit of what can be studied and discussed. With revenues totaling between ten and fourteen billion dollars annually—more than the combined revenues of professional football, basketball, and baseball—visual, hard-core pornography is a central feature of American popular culture. It is time, Williams contends, for scholars to recognize this and give pornography a serious and extended analysis.
The essays in this volume move beyond feminist debates and distinctions between a “good” erotica and a “bad” hard core. Contributors examine varieties of pornography from the tradition of the soft-core pin-up through the contemporary hard-core tradition of straight, gay, and lesbian videos and dvds to the burgeoning phenomenon of pornography on the Internet. They explore, as examples of the genre, individual works as divergent as The Starr Report, the pirated Tommy Lee/Pamela Anderson honeymoon video, and explicit Japanese “ladies’ comics” consumed by women. They also probe difficult issues such as the sexualization of race and class and the relationship of pornography to the avant-garde. To take pornography seriously as an object of analysis also means teaching it. Porn Studies thus includes a useful annotated bibliography of readings and archival sources important to the study of pornography as a cultural form.
Contributors. Heather Butler, Rich Cante, Jake Gerli, Minette Hillyer, Nguyen Tan Hoang, Despina Kakoudaki, Franklin Melendez, Ara Osterweil, Zabet Patterson, Constance Penley, Angelo Restivo, Eric Schaefer, Michael Sicinski, Deborah Shamoon, Maria St. John, Tom Waugh, Linda Williams
“For more than a decade now, Linda Williams has been taking porn seriously. Her latest—Porn Studies—does not disappoint. She succeeds, once again, in legitimizing porn as an essential topic for academic study and provides a guide for teaching about it. For all those who want to know more about the place of porn in American culture, this is refreshingly unabashed scholarship.”—-Susie Bright, author of Mommy's Little Girl: On Sex, Motherhood, Porn, and Cherry Pie
“Thank God for Linda Williams! She is absolutely brilliant. I have learned an enormous amount from her over the years. She boldly goes where few academics dare. Porn Studies is a smart, much needed, fascinating book, which paves the way and sets the tone for future porn studies. This book boggles and blows my mind.”—Annie Sprinkle, postmodern pornographer and sexologist
"With Porn Studies, Williams and her contributors have opened a door-they've made it possible for intelligent people to discuss porn in more or less polite company. This accomplishment alone is worth celebrating. I look forward to what comes next in the field." -- Annalee Newitz * Cineaste *
"The anthology's 16 essays . . . deliciously, disturbingly blur the traditionally solid line between the intellectual and the sexual, and that's part of the point. . . . These essays courageously suggest that there is great pleasure in exploring the spaces between polemics and sensationalism." -- Maria Elena Buszek * Bust *
"The tone is sensible, even as some wonderfully sensational material is covered. . . . There are also some excellent histories here. . . . The book will certainly help 'the teacher and student of pornography roll up their sleeves to begin work in this field', mitigating porn's image as mainstream culture's guilty secret" -- Linda Ruth Williams * Sight & Sound *
"This collection of very accessible and fascinating essays links pornography to the avant-garde and modern sex scandals, tracing its roots from early stag films and making a connection between war machinery and the pinup girls of WWII." * Ms. *
ISBN: 9780822333128
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 703g
528 pages