Killing Women: The Visual Culture of Gender and Violence

"The examination of women and violence has traditionally focused on women who are killed or who are the victims of violence. Women murderers were often portrayed as vengeful wronged women or as maternal protectors. Recently, however, there have been significant shifts in the characterization of women who kill, in both popular culture (Lara Croft, Buffy, and Kill Bill) and in the current global political landscape (the so-called angels of death in Palestine). The essays in this book explore gender and violence by focusing on visual culture -- films, museums, art, archives, and the news media -- and by engaging with contemporary theories and practices of identity politics and the debates about the ethics and politics of representation itself. Does representation create or recreate the conditions of violence? Is representation itself a form of violence? Weaving between fact and fiction, the contributors examine the powerful role culture plays in the production and reproduction of social meaning. The collection offers fresh analyses of well-established sources for the study of women and violence, including the horror film and the court trials of women who have killed their abusive husbands. It adds significant new dimensions to the characterization of gender and violence with the inclusion of nationalism and war, feminist media, and the exploration of violence circulated through non-obvious sources, such as medical cultural practice and the information society."--P. [4] of cover.