Constance Penley
The Future of an Illusion: Film, Feminism and Psychoanalysis.
University of Minnesota Press, 1990. Media and Society. Second printing. 0816617724 xx/207 pages.
Softcover volume, measuring approximately 6.25" x 9.25", is new.
""The Future of an Illusion" was first published in 1989 ... (it) documents the pivotal role Constance Penley has played in the development of feminist film theory. Penley analyzes the primary movements that have shaped the field: the conjunction of feminism, film theory, and psychoanalysis, and the inherent debates surrounding the politics of women and representation. These debates center on the position of women in the classical Hollywood narrative, the construction of the spectator's desire in pornography and eroticism, and the implicitly male bias in psychoanalytically oriented film theory. Essential to anyone studying the sexual policies of representation, "The Future of an Illusion" ranges from avant-garde films to video, popular cinema, television, literature, and critical and cultural theory."