Allison de Fren is a writer, professor and media scholar based in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. Appointed in 2010, de Fren teaches new media theory and practice at

Occidental College Occidental College (informally Oxy) is a private liberal arts college in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1887 as a coeducational college by clergy and members of the Presbyterian Church, it became non-sectarian in 1910. It is one of the oldes ...

. Her documentary film ''The Mechanical Bride'' examines the modern-day impulse of creating artificial humanistic dolls for sex and companionship. It is narrated by Julie Newmar with music composed by Rich Ragsdale and features interviews with people who own sex-dolls, engineers who create them, artists who depict them as well as information on historical automatons and female robots portrayed in cinema. The film takes its title from the book of the same name by

Marshall McLuhan Herbert Marshall McLuhan (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media theory. He studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridge. He began his ...

. In 2010, the Science Fiction Research Association gave her the Pioneer Award for her essay “The Anatomical Gaze in Tomorrow’s Eve.” She regularly publishes video essays on subjects related to technology, media representation and gender. She received her doctorate from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts and has been awarded fellowships from the

Annenberg Foundation The Annenberg Foundation is a family foundation that provides funding and support to non-profit organizations in the United States and around the world. Some of the Foundation's core initiatives are the Annenberg/Corporation for Public Broadcast ...

, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the

American Association of University Women The American Association of University Women (AAUW), officially founded in 1881, is a non-profit organization that advances equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, and research. The organization has a nationwide network of 170,000 ...

References

External links

*de Fren, Allison. "The Anatomical Gaze in Tomorrow's Eve." ''Science Fiction Studies'' (2009): 235–265. Living people American women writers Filmmakers from California Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American women {{US-writer-stub