International Cinema and the Girl ─ Local Issues, Transnational Contexts

From Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz to Bella Swan in Twilight, the girl has been a subject of intense cinematic interest. The symbol of (imagined) childhood innocence, the site of intrigue and nostalgia for adults, a metaphor for the precarious nature of subjectivity itself, the girl, caught between infancy and adulthood, speaks to many strands of interest for film studies: feminist questions of cinematic representation of female subjects; historical accounts of shifting images of girls and childhood in the cinema; and philosophical engagements with the possibilities for the subject in film. This collection considers the specificity of girls' experiences and their cinematic articulation through a multicultural feminist lens which cuts across the divides of popular/art-house, Western/non Western, and north/south. The contributors bring a new understanding of the global/local nature of contemporary girlhood and its historical determinants and specifically pay attention to the vexed question of where exactly girlhood begins and ends. Containing work by established and emerging scholars, this volume explodes the narrow post-feminist canon and expands existing geographical, ethnic and historical accounts of cinematic cultures and girlhood.

Fiona Handyside is Senior Lecturer in European Film at the University of Exeter, UK.

Kate Taylor-Jones is Lecturer in Visual Culture in the School of Creative Arts and Media at Bangor University, UK.