Annette Frieda Kuhn,
FBA is a British author,
cultural historian
Cultural history combines the approaches of anthropology and history to examine popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience. It examines the records and narrative descriptions of past matter, encompassing the ...
, educator, researcher, editor and feminist. She is known for her work in
screen studies,
visual culture
Visual culture is the aspect of culture expressed in visual images. Many academic fields study this subject, including cultural studies, art history, critical theory, philosophy, media studies, Deaf Studies, and anthropology.
The field of ...
, film history and
cultural memory
Because memory is not just an individual, private experience but is also part of the collective domain, cultural memory has become a topic in both historiography ( Pierre Nora, Richard Terdiman) and cultural studies (e.g., Susan Stewart). These ...
. She is Professor and Research Fellow in Film Studies at
Queen Mary University of London
, mottoeng = With united powers
, established = 1785 – The London Hospital Medical College1843 – St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College1882 – Westfield College1887 – East London College/Queen Mary College
, type = Public researc ...
.
Career
Kuhn earned a bachelor's degree in 1969 and master's degree in 1975 in
sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...
at the
University of Sheffield
, mottoeng = To discover the causes of things
, established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions:
– Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield
, type = Pu ...
. While at Sheffield, she served as the Research Officer at the Sheffield Students' Union, during which period she worked on a campaign for a University
crèche
Crèche or creche (from Latin ''cripia'' "crib, cradle") may refer to:
*Child care center, an organization of adults who take care of children in place of their parents
*Nativity scene, a group of figures arranged to represent the birth of Jesus ...
. Kuhn also co-convened the Sheffield University Women's Studies Group, organising public seminars and film screenings. While a student in the early 1970s, she co-authored a survey of British university graduates with
Anne Poole which supported the notion that
first children among several have higher educational achievement than their siblings. During the same period, she also co-authored a second survey with Anne Poole and R. Keith Kelsall, published as "Graduates: The Sociology of the Elite", which looked at women graduates and their careers, or lack thereof.
She co-edited ''Feminism and Materialism'' (1978) with
AnnMarie Wolpe
AnnMarie Wolpe (1 December 1930 – 14 February 2018, née Kantor) was a South African anti-apartheid activist, sociologist and feminist. Her husband Harold Wolpe was also a South African anti-apartheid activist who was imprisoned along with Nels ...
, was part of the founding editorial collective of ''
Feminist Review
''Feminist Review'' is a triannual peer-reviewed academic journal with a focus on exploring gender in its multiple forms and interrelationships. The journal was established in 1979. It is published by SAGE Publishing and is edited by a collective.
...
'' (1979- ) and was a member of the women's photography group
Second Sight
Extrasensory perception or ESP, also called sixth sense, is a claimed paranormal ability pertaining to reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed with the mind. The term was adopted by Duke Universit ...
.
In the mid-1970s, Kuhn began writing, teaching and publishing in
film studies
Film studies is an academic discipline that deals with various theoretical, historical, and critical approaches to cinema as an art form and a medium. It is sometimes subsumed within media studies and is often compared to television studies.
...
, often from a
feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
standpoint. Her books included ''Women's Pictures: Feminism and Cinema'' (1982, rev. ed. 1994),
in which Kuhn defined a variant of fictional realism as "new women's cinema" which targeted a working woman audience of the mid-1970s;
and ''The Power of the Image: Essays on Representation and Sexuality'' (1985).
Kuhn co-edited ''The Women's Companion to International Film'' (1990) with Susannah Radstone.
She taught classes in adult and higher education in both the UK and the USA.
Kuhn served on the editorial board of the journal ''
Screen
Screen or Screens may refer to:
Arts
* Screen printing (also called ''silkscreening''), a method of printing
* Big screen, a nickname associated with the motion picture industry
* Split screen (filmmaking), a film composition paradigm in which mul ...
'' from 1976 to 1985 and rejoined the journal as a co-editor on its move to
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
in 1989, standing down in 2014. In the late 1970s, she joined five other women in forming a feminist forum which roundly criticized the
fashion press and their perpetuation of a stereotype in women's clothing. In 1986 she completed a PhD on the history of
film censorship
Film censorship is carried out by various countries to differing degrees, sometimes as a result of powerful or relentless lobbying by organizations or individuals. Films that are banned in a particular country change over time.
Rating systems
A ...
at the
University of London
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...
. From 1984 to the early 1990s she was a commissioning editor for 'Questions for Feminism', a series of socialist-feminist books published by Verso, and in the late 1980s worked as desk editor in Verso's editorial office in London. Some documents from the early phase of Kuhn's career are lodged in the Women's Library at the London School of Economics.
Teaching
As lecturer in Sociology at
Goldsmiths College
Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Wor ...
(1974–76), Kuhn taught classes on women and the family and the sexual division of labour.
In 1989 Kuhn joined the
University of Glasgow
, image = UofG Coat of Arms.png
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of arms
Flag
, latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis
, motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita
, ...
as a lecturer in Film and Television and was promoted to Reader in Film and Television Studies in 1991, in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies. She moved to
Lancaster University
Lancaster University (legally The University of Lancaster) is a public university, public research university in Lancaster, Lancashire, Lancaster, Lancashire, England. The university was established in 1964 by royal charter, as one of several pla ...
in 1998 as Reader in Cultural Research and was promoted to Professor of Film Studies in 2000. In 2006, Kuhn moved to
Queen Mary University of London
, mottoeng = With united powers
, established = 1785 – The London Hospital Medical College1843 – St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College1882 – Westfield College1887 – East London College/Queen Mary College
, type = Public researc ...
since 2006 and is now Professor and Research Fellow in Film Studies.
Since 2002 she has served on the Advisory Board of the Raphael Samuel History Centre (University of East London/Birkbeck University of London) and on the Education and Culture Committee of Phoenix Cinema (Finchley, London) since 2009.
Kuhn has held visiting professorships at the
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...
, the
University of Wisconsin, Madison
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
,
Masaryk University
Masaryk University (MU) ( cs, Masarykova univerzita; la, Universitas Masarykiana Brunensis) is the second largest university in the Czech Republic, a member of the Compostela Group and the Utrecht Network. Founded in 1919 in Brno as the seco ...
and
Stockholm University
Stockholm University ( sv, Stockholms universitet) is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, so ...
; and fellowships at the Humanities Research Centre at the
Australian National University
The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...
,
Macquarie University, and the Five Colleges Women's Studies Research Center at
Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite historically women's colleges in the Northeastern United States.
...
. Kuhn has delivered keynote lectures, invited talks and workshops also in Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, South Africa, Spain and Switzerland. Her writings have been translated into at least ten languages.
Notable works
Since the early 1990s, Kuhn has researched, and written widely on, cinemagoing and memory, in work arising from a large-scale project called "Cinema Culture in 1930s Britain", which she directed and which involved gathering a considerable body of questionnaire and depth-interview material from several hundred surviving cinemagoers of the 1930s. The project's findings have been discussed in a number of radio programmes, as well as in books (in particular ''An Everyday Magic: Cinema and Cultural Memory''), articles, chapters and conference papers; and it has become a significant reference point for current research and community activity around cinema memory and histories of film reception. Most of the materials gathered in the course of the 1930s project are now part of Lancaster University Library's Special Collections, and are available there for consultation by other researchers.
Concurrently, Kuhn has inquired into photography and cultural memory, with a particular interest in the uses of and meanings attaching to family photographs, conducting research and workshops, giving talks and producing writings on the subject. Her book ''Family Secrets'' is widely cited and continues to be drawn on by writers and artists, especially feminists, conducting autoethnographic work with personal photographs, as well as by readers inspired to conduct memory work with their own family albums.
''The Oxford Dictionary of Film Studies'' (2012), which Kuhn co-authored with her Queen Mary University of London colleague Guy Westwell, was several years in the making. It is grounded in a systematic overview of the discipline, both historically and as it is currently taught and researched, with the aim of producing an inclusive map of the field that would eventually generate the topics addressed in the dictionary, permit assessment of each headword and entry in light of its place in the discipline's overall architecture, supply a picture of the interconnections between various areas of inquiry, and generate a framework for cross-references that would allow users to follow personal paths through the dictionary and make their own discoveries about the discipline. In both its print and online versions, the Dictionary is widely used in screen studies teaching at all levels, as well as by film critics and film-lovers.
Awards
In 1994, Kuhn was awarded a
Fulbright
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...
Senior Research Scholarship to study six months at
Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College is a private liberal arts women's college in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the oldest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite historically women's colleges in the Northeastern United States.
...
in the Five College Women's Studies program in order to complete work on the Family Secrets project, research for "The Daughter’s Lament: Memory Work and Productions of the Self".
In 2004, she was elected to the Fellowship of the British Academy, and in 2016 to Membership of the European Academy (
Academia Europaea
The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences.
The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...
).
The Annette Kuhn Essay Award was established by ''Screen'' in 2014, in recognition of Kuhn's outstanding contribution to ''Screen'' and her wider commitment to the development of screen studies and screen theory.
Selected works
* ''Feminism and Materialism: Women and Modes of Production''. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978. Co-edited.
* ''Ideology and Cultural Production''. London: Croom Helm, 1979. Co-edited.
* ''Women's Pictures: Feminism and Cinema''. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982; 2nd edn, Verso, 1994. Authored.
* ''The Power of the Image: Essays on Representation and Sexuality''. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985. Authored.
* "Women's Genres," in ''Home Is Where the Heart Is: Studies in Melodrama and the Women's Film'' (ed. C. Gledhill). London: British Film Institute, 1987. Authored.
*''Cinema, Censorship and Sexuality, 1909 to 1925''. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1988. Authored.
* ''Alien Zone: Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema''. London: Verso, 1990. Edited.
* ''The Women's Companion to International Film''. London: Virago; and Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990. Edited.
* ''Family Secrets: Acts of Memory and Imagination''. London: Verso, 1995; rev edn, 2002. Authored.
* ''Queen of the Bs: Ida Lupino Behind the Camera''. Bradford-on-Avon: Flicks Books; New York: Praeger, 1995. Edited.
* ''Screen Histories: A Screen Reader''. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998. Co-edited.
* ''Alien Zone II: The Spaces of Science Fiction Cinema''. London: Verso, 1999. Edited.
* ''An Everyday Magic: Cinema and Cultural Memory''. London: I.B. Tauris, 2002. Published in the US as ''Dreaming of Fred and Ginger: Cinema and Cultural Memory''. New York: New York University Press. Authored.
* ''Screening World Cinema: a Screen Reader''. London: Routledge, 2006. Co-edited.
* ''Locating Memory: Photographic Acts''. Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books, 2006. Co-edited.
* ''Ratcatcher''. London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008. Authored.
* ''Screen Theorizing Today: A Celebration of Screen’s Fiftieth Anniversary''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Edited.
* ''The Oxford Dictionary of Film Studies''. Oxford University Press, 2012. Co-authored.
*''Little Madnesses: Winnicott, Transitional Phenomena and Cultural Experience''. London: I.B. Tauris, 2013. Edited.
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kuhn, Annette
Living people
Fellows of the British Academy
Academics of Queen Mary University of London
Alumni of the University of Sheffield
1945 births
Cultural historians
British socialist feminists