''Camera Obscura'' is a journal of

feminism 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 ...

, culture, and

media studies Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media Studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but mostl ...

published by

Duke University Press Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 ...

Durham, North Carolina Durham ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County and Wake County. With a population of 283,506 in the 2020 Census, Durham is the 4th- ...

. Published three times per year, the journal focuses on "the conjunctions of gender, race, class, and sexuality with audiovisual culture; new histories and theories of film, television, video, and digital media; and politically engaged approaches to a range of media practices." It was founded in 1976 by four graduate students at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

: Janet Bergstrom, Sandy Flitterman, Elisabeth Lyon, and Constance Penley.''Camera Obscura'' Editorial Collective, "''Camera Obscura'': Archiving the Past, Imagining the Future," ''Camera Obscura'', no. 61 (2006): 1–25. The four co-founders had met while working on the magazine ''

Women and Film ''Women & Film'', published in California between 1972 and 1975, was the first feminist film magazine, "a project that would transform cinema". ''Women & Film'' was coedited by Siew-Hwa Beh, a Malaysian immigrant to the United States studying film ...

''. In its early years, the journal centered on film as its object of analysis, and strove to use "new approaches in feminist, cultural, and critical theory to rethink cinema, as well as, notably, using cinema to rethink feminism and critical theory." In 1995, the journal's subtitle was changed from "A Journal of Feminism and Film Theory" to "Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies" to reflect that its interests had developed beyond semiotic and psychoanalytic theories to include approaches such as industrial and historical analyses, genre and star studies, ethnographic and reception models, analyses of race and ethnicity, postcolonial theory and critiques of empire, and queer and trans studies. ''Camera Obscura'' has included articles by such contributors as Yvonne Rainer,

Chantal Akerman Chantal Anne Akerman (; 6 June 19505 October 2015) was a Belgian film director, screenwriter, artist, and film professor at the City College of New York. She is best known for films such as ''Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles' ...

, Raymond Bellour, Christian Metz, Jean-François Lyotard, Marguerite Duras,

Mary Ann Doane Mary Ann Doane (born 1952) is the Class of 1937 Professor of Film and Media at the University of California, Berkeley and was previously the George Hazard Crooker Professor of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. She is a pioneer in the ...

, Kaja Silverman, Laura Mulvey,

Trinh T. Minh-ha Trinh T. Minh-ha (born 1952 in Hanoi; Vietnamese: Trịnh Thị Minh Hà) is a Vietnamese filmmaker, writer, literary theorist, composer, and professor. She has been making films for over thirty years and may be best known for her films ''Reass ...

, Constance Penley, and

E. Ann Kaplan E. Ann Kaplan is an American professor, author, and director. She currently teaches English at the Stony Brook State University of New York, and is the founder and director of The Humanities Institute at Stony Brook University. She coined the term ...

References

1976 establishments in North Carolina Duke University Press academic journals Feminism in the United States Feminist magazines Film studies journals Magazines established in 1976 Magazines published in North Carolina Triannual magazines published in the United States Mass media in Durham, North Carolina {{film-journal-stub

See also

References