Alice Doesn’t: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema PDF
Preview Alice Doesn’t: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema
ALICE DOESN'T LANGUAGE, DISCOURSE, SOCIETY Editors: Stephen Heath and Colin MacCabe Published VISION AND PAINTING: TheLogicoftheGaze Norman Bryson ALICE DOESN'T: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema Teresa de Lauretis CONDITIONS OF MUSIC Alan Durant FEMINISM AND PSYCHOANALYSIS: The Daughter's Seduction Jane Gallop ON LAW AND IDEOLOGY Paul Hirst JAMES JOYCE AND THE REVOLUTION OF THE WORD Colin MacCabe THE TALKING CURE: Essays in Psychoanalysis and Language Colin MacCabe (editor) PSYCHOANALYSIS AND CINEMA: The Imaginary Signifier Christian Metz LANGUAGE, SEMANTICS AND IDEOLOGY Michel Pecheux LANGUAGE, SEXUALITY AND IDEOLOGY IN EZRA POUND'S CANTOS Jean-Miche!Rabate THE CASE OF PETER PAN OR THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF CHILDREN'S FICTION Jacqueline Rose THE MAKING OF THE READER: Language and Subjectivity in Modern American, English and Irish Poetry David Trotter Forthcoming STATE OF NATURE: Ethnography and Origins Beverley Brown andJudith Ennew TO REPRESENT WOMAN? The Representation ofSexual Differences in the Visual Media Elizabeth Cowie UNDERSTANDING BECKETT PeterGidal THREE ESSAYS ON SUBJECTIVITY Stephen Heath EPOS: Word, Narrative and the Iliad Michael Lynn-George THE GENEALOGY OF MORAL FORMS: Foucault,Nietzsche, Donzelot Jeffrey Minson FEMINISMS: A Conceptual History Denise Riley POLITICAL CRITICISM Michael Ryan ALICE DOESN.,T FEMINISM~ SEMIOTICS~ CINEMA Teresa de Lauretis M MACMILLAN Chapters 3 and 4 are revised versions ofa rticles published originally in Screen 22, no. 3 (1981) and Discourse, no. 5 (1983). Portions ofc hapters I and 2 have appeared in somewhatdifferentform in Yale Italian Studies, no. 2 (1980) and Cine-Tracts, no. II (1980). The title and a few paragraphs ofc hapter I were also used for the concluding essay of Teresa de Lauretis and Stephen Heath, eds., The Cinematic Apparatus (Macmillan, 1980). ©Teresa de Lauretis 1984 All rights reserved. No part oft his publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission. First published in the USA by Indiana University Press 1984 First published in the UK 1984 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Associated companies in Auckland, Delhi, Dublin, Gaborone, Hamburg, Harare, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Kuala Lumpur, Lagos, Manzini, Melbourne, Mexico Ciry, Nairobi, New York, Singapore, Tokyo British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data De Lauretis, Teresa Alice doesn't I. Women in moving-pictures I. Title 791.43'09'09352042 PNI995.9.W6 ISBN 978-0-333-38288-2 ISBN 978-1-349-17495-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-17495-9 CONTENTS PREFACE Vll ACKNOWLEDGMENTS lX Introduction 1 l Through the Looking-Glass 12 .. i) Imaging 37 :J Snow on the Oedipal Stage 70 4 Now and Nowh ere 84 vi I Contents Desire in Narrative 103 6 Semiotics and Experience 158 NOTES 187 INDEX 216 PREFACE The essays collected in this book have been conceived and written over the past four years. On or very near my writing desk, in whatever city I happened to be during that time, there was always this sign: lllite doesn't! I'd picked it up at a demonstration or a meeting-! don't remember exactly-and have kept it with me ever since. It seems appropriate to name the book after it, for not only is the book intended in the same sense as the placard, but both are signs of the same struggle, both are texts of the women's movement. The images or references suggested by the name "Alice" are many and will probably vary with each reader. Whether you think of Alice in Wonderland or Radio Alice in Bologna; of Alice B. Toklas, who "wrote" an autobiography as well as other things; or of Alice james, who produced an illness while her brothers did the writing; of Alice Sheldon, who writes science fiction, but with a male pseudonym; or of any other Alice, is entirely up to you, reader. For me it is important to acknowledge, in this title, the unqualified opposition of feminism to existing social relations, its re fusal of given definitions and cultural values; and at the same time to affirm the political and personal ties of shared experience that join women in the movement and are the condition of feminist work, theory and practice. March 1983 Vll ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My first thanks go to those women from and with whom I have learned what feminist practice is, what feminist theory should be, and, more rarely but far more delightfully, what the two can be together. I thank Tania Modleski, Catherine McClenahan, and Mary Russo for reading portions of the manuscript in draft form and rejoicing in my small victories. I thank all those who offered me their know ledges and skills, friendship or love during the writing of the essays, the hard times, and the difficulties; in particular, Elizabeth Elkins, Andreas Huyssen, Stephanie Jed, Patricia Mellencamp, Franco Mollia, Sondra O'Neale, Kaja Silverman, Michael Silverman, William Tay, Patrizia Violi. And Paul Loeffler. I thank the colleagues who welcomed me as Visiting Professor in the Literature Department of the University of California, San Diego, where I began to put the book together; and all my students, past and present, for the encouragement they gave by their seldom less than excited response. Last but not least I thank the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Center for Twentieth Century Studies, its Director, Kathleen Wood ward, its staff, Jean Lile and Carol Tennessen, for their magnificent hospitality during my tenure as a Fellow of the Center, where over a third of this book was w1itten; and Ginny Schauble for her patience and virtuosity in typing it. I also want to acknowledge a special debt of gratitude to Dean William Halloran and former Associate Dean G. Micheal Riley of the College of Letters and Science for their continu ous and generous support of my work. IX DOESN'T AI~ICE
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