Annette Kuhn
{{short description|British academic}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Annette Kuhn
| birth_name = Annette Frieda Kuhn
| alt = Annette Kuhn
| birth_place = England, United Kingdom
| alma_mater = University of Sheffield,
University of London
| occupation = {{hlist|Author|cultural historian|educator|researcher|editor|feminist}}
| notable_works = The Oxford Dictionary of Film Studies
}}
Annette Frieda Kuhn, FBA is a British author, cultural historian, educator, researcher, editor and feminist. She is known for her work in screen studies, visual culture, film history and cultural memory. She is Professor and Research Fellow in Film Studies at Queen Mary University of London.
Career
Kuhn earned a bachelor's degree in 1969 and master's degree in 1975 in sociology at the University of Sheffield. While at Sheffield, she served as the Research Officer at the Sheffield Students' Union, during which period she worked on a campaign for a University crèche. Kuhn also co-convened the Sheffield University Women's Studies Group, organising public seminars and film screenings. While a student in the early 1970s, she co-authored a survey of British university graduates with Anne Poole which supported the notion that first children among several have higher educational achievement than their siblings.{{Cite journal|last=Edens|first=B. David|date=8 November 1973|title=First-Born Has Best Chance of Going to College|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21217639/firstborn_has_best_chance_going_to/|journal=The Word and Way|location=Jefferson City, Missouri|volume=110|issue=44|page=14|access-date=23 June 2018|via=Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra)}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21219735/firstborn_are_achievers/|title=First-Born Are Achievers|last=|date=9 May 1973|work=The Philadelphia Inquirer|access-date=23 June 2018|agency=Chicago Tribune Service|department=Food—Living|page=D1|via=Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra)}} During the same period, she also co-authored a second survey with Anne Poole and R. Keith Kelsall, published as "Graduates: The Sociology of the Elite", which looked at women graduates and their careers, or lack thereof.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21219261/what_do_women_graduates_really_want/|title=What do women graduates really want?|last=Poole|first=Anne|date=7 March 1972|work=The Guardian|access-date=23 June 2018|department=Education Guardian|location=London|page=17|author-link=Anne Poole|via=Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra)}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21226187/a_question_of_degree/|title=A question of degree|last=Hartley|first=Alec|date=17 February 1972|work=The Guardian|access-date=23 June 2018|location=London|page=9|via=Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra)}}
She co-edited Feminism and Materialism (1978) with AnnMarie Wolpe, was part of the founding editorial collective of Feminist Review (1979- ) and was a member of the women's photography group Second Sight.The other group members were Frances Borzello, Jill Pack and Cassandra Wedd; see Kuhn, The Power of the Image: Essays on Representation and Sexuality, pg 9-10.
In the mid-1970s, Kuhn began writing, teaching and publishing in film studies, often from a feminist standpoint. Her books included Women's Pictures: Feminism and Cinema (1982, rev. ed. 1994),{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21216720/the_celluloid_feminists/|title=The Celluloid Feminists|last=Stewart|first=Meg|date=20 November 1982|work=The Sydney Morning Herald|access-date=23 June 2018|location=Sydney, New South Wales, Australia|page=37|quote=The book is for film theorists and critics.|via=Newspapers.com (Publisher Edition)}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21217264/review_womens_pictures/|title=Screenplay (column)|last=Blacker|first=Irwin R.|date=26 September 1982|work=Los Angeles Times|access-date=23 June 2018|page=7|quote=Since the beginning of the feminist movement, the market has seen several good books on the subject of women and film. (This) sadly is not one of them.|via=Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra)}} in which Kuhn defined a variant of fictional realism as "new women's cinema" which targeted a working woman audience of the mid-1970s;{{Rp|175}} and The Power of the Image: Essays on Representation and Sexuality (1985).{{Cite conference|last=Brunner|first=Diane|date=20 November 1993|title=The Knower of the Known: Exploring Issues of Violence against Women in Popular Music|url=https://archive.org/stream/ERIC_ED366941#page/n1/mode/2up/search/Annette+Kuhn|conference=Annual Meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English (83rd, Pittsburgh, PA, November 17–22, 1993)|pages=3|via=Internet Archive}} Kuhn co-edited The Women's Companion to International Film (1990) with Susannah Radstone.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21220060/beauty_beasts_celluloid_flops/|title=Beauty, beasts, celluloid flops|last=French|first=Philip|date=25 November 1990|work=The Observer|access-date=23 June 2018|department=Movies|location=London|page=10|author-link=Philip French|via=Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra)}} She taught classes in adult and higher education in both the UK and the USA.{{cite book|last1=Humm|first1=Maggie|author-link=Maggie Humm|title=Feminism and Film|date=1997|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|location=Edinburgh|isbn=978-0-7486-0900-0|pages=26–28|edition=1st|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aoSgDTZo3usC&dq=Annette%20Kuhn&pg=PA26|chapter=Annette Kuhn and materialist criticism}}
Kuhn served on the editorial board of the journal Screen from 1976 to 1985 and rejoined the journal as a co-editor on its move to Oxford University Press in 1989, standing down in 2014. In the late 1970s, she joined five other women in forming a feminist forum which roundly criticized the fashion press and their perpetuation of a stereotype in women's clothing.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21218011/clothes_encounter/|title=Clothes Encounter|last=Neustatter|first=Angela|date=25 July 1978|work=The Guardian|access-date=23 June 2018|department=Guardian Women|location=London|page=7|via=Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra)}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21218126/fashioned_after_our_own_image/|title=Fashioned after our own image|last1=Naish|first1=Julia|date=26 July 1978|work=The Guardian|access-date=23 June 2018|last2=Barrett|first2=Michele|department=Guardian Women|location=London|last3=Wilson|first3=Elizabeth|last4=Wolpe|first4=Ann-Marie|last5=Kuhn|first5=Annette|last6=Owen|first6=Ursula|via=Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra)}} In 1986 she completed a PhD on the history of film censorship at the University of London. From 1984 to the early 1990s she was a commissioning editor for 'Questions for Feminism', a series of socialist-feminist books published by Verso, and in the late 1980s worked as desk editor in Verso's editorial office in London. Some documents from the early phase of Kuhn's career are lodged in the Women's Library at the London School of Economics.{{cite web|url=http://twl-calm.library.lse.ac.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=7ANK|title=7ANK - Papers of Annette Kuhn|website=Twl-calm.library.lse.ac.uk|accessdate=2017-06-23}}
Teaching
As lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths College (1974–76), Kuhn taught classes on women and the family and the sexual division of labour.
In 1989 Kuhn joined the University of Glasgow as a lecturer in Film and Television and was promoted to Reader in Film and Television Studies in 1991, in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21219557/university_of_glasgow_research_fello/|title=University of Glasgow, Research Fellow, Cinema Culture in 1930's Britain|last=Macnab|first=Gillian|date=12 July 1994|work=The Guardian|access-date=23 June 2018|department=Education Guardian: Research & Research Awards|location=London|page=33|via=Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra)}} She moved to Lancaster University in 1998 as Reader in Cultural Research and was promoted to Professor of Film Studies in 2000. In 2006, Kuhn moved to Queen Mary University of London since 2006 and is now Professor and Research Fellow in Film Studies.{{cite web|url=https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sllf/film-studies/people/academic/profiles/kuhn.html|title=Annette Kuhn, BA (Econ), MA, PhD Professor and Research Fellow in Film Studies|work=Profile|publisher=Quen Mary University of London|accessdate=23 November 2019}} Since 2002 she has served on the Advisory Board of the Raphael Samuel History Centre (University of East London/Birkbeck University of London) and on the Education and Culture Committee of Phoenix Cinema (Finchley, London) since 2009.
Kuhn has held visiting professorships at the University of Iowa, the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Masaryk University and Stockholm University; and fellowships at the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University, Macquarie University, and the Five Colleges Women's Studies Research Center at Mount Holyoke College. Kuhn has delivered keynote lectures, invited talks and workshops also in Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, South Africa, Spain and Switzerland. Her writings have been translated into at least ten languages.
Notable works
Since the early 1990s, Kuhn has researched, and written widely on, cinemagoing and memory, in work arising from a large-scale project called "Cinema Culture in 1930s Britain", which she directed and which involved gathering a considerable body of questionnaire and depth-interview material from several hundred surviving cinemagoers of the 1930s. The project's findings have been discussed in a number of radio programmes,{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/2002_35_fri_02.shtml |title=Radio 4 - Woman's Hour -Cinema in the Thirties |publisher=BBC |accessdate=2017-06-23}}{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007692f |title=BBC Radio 4 Extra - Where Were You When Bambi's Mother Was Shot? |website=Bbc.co.uk |date=2017-03-29 |accessdate=2017-06-23}}{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00xgr1k |title=BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, Going to the Flicks, Episode 1 |website=Bbc.co.uk |date=2015-01-11 |accessdate=2017-06-23}}{{cite web|url=http://www.radiodramareviews.com/id725.html |title=Going to the Flicks |accessdate=2016-12-21 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161222000513/http://www.radiodramareviews.com/id725.html |archive-date=2016-12-22 }} as well as in books (in particular An Everyday Magic: Cinema and Cultural Memory), articles, chapters and conference papers; and it has become a significant reference point for current research and community activity around cinema memory and histories of film reception. Most of the materials gathered in the course of the 1930s project are now part of Lancaster University Library's Special Collections, and are available there for consultation by other researchers.{{cite web|url=http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/library/resources/special-collections/archives/cinema-and-culture/ |title=Cinema and culture | Library | Lancaster University |website=Lancaster.ac.uk |date=2014-01-31 |accessdate=2017-06-23}}
| quote = Annette Kuhn has grouped scholarly work on women's genres into two camps—one that emphasizes contexts (often TV studies), and one that emphasizes texts (often film studies).
| source = Defining Women: Television and the Case of Cagney & Lacey{{cite book |title=Defining Women |via=Internet Archive |last=D'Acci |first=Julie |url=https://archive.org/stream/definingwomentel00dacc#page/170/mode/2up/search/annette+kuhn |url-access=registration |year=1994 |isbn= 0807821322 |publisher=The University of North Carolina Press }}{{rp|171}}
| width = 25%
| author = Julie D'Acci
}}
Concurrently, Kuhn has inquired into photography and cultural memory, with a particular interest in the uses of and meanings attaching to family photographs, conducting research and workshops, giving talks and producing writings on the subject. Her book Family Secrets is widely cited and continues to be drawn on by writers and artists, especially feminists, conducting autoethnographic work with personal photographs, as well as by readers inspired to conduct memory work with their own family albums.{{cite journal|jstor=1395564|title=Review: Family Secrets: Acts of Memory and Imagination by Annette Kuhn
|author=Trev Broughton|journal=Feminist Review|volume=60|date=1998|pages=135–137}}{{cite web|author=tay |url=http://virtualdayz.blogspot.co.uk/2005/07/annette-kuhn-and-memory-work.html |title=VirtualDayz: Annette Kuhn and Memory Work: Reflections on "Family Secrets" |website=Virtualdayz.blogspot.co.uk |date=2005-07-27 |accessdate=2017-06-23}}{{cite web|url=http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/family-ties-reframing-memory-various-artists-peltz-gallery-london/ |title=Family Ties: Reframing Memory Various Artists, Peltz Gallery, London |publisher=Aesthetica Magazine |accessdate=2017-06-23}}
The Oxford Dictionary of Film Studies (2012), which Kuhn co-authored with her Queen Mary University of London colleague Guy Westwell, was several years in the making. It is grounded in a systematic overview of the discipline, both historically and as it is currently taught and researched, with the aim of producing an inclusive map of the field that would eventually generate the topics addressed in the dictionary, permit assessment of each headword and entry in light of its place in the discipline's overall architecture, supply a picture of the interconnections between various areas of inquiry, and generate a framework for cross-references that would allow users to follow personal paths through the dictionary and make their own discoveries about the discipline. In both its print and online versions, the Dictionary is widely used in screen studies teaching at all levels, as well as by film critics and film-lovers.{{cite news|author=Christopher Hirst |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/oxford-dictionary-of-film-studies-by-annette-kuhn-guy-westwell-7899522.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220507/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/oxford-dictionary-of-film-studies-by-annette-kuhn-guy-westwell-7899522.html |archive-date=7 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Oxford Dictionary of Film Studies By Annette Kuhn & Guy Westwell |newspaper=The Independent |accessdate=2017-06-23}}{{cbignore}}{{cite journal |last1=Magerstädt |first1=Sylvie |title=Oxford Dictionary of Film Studies by Annette Kuhn & Guy Westwell (review) |journal=Film & History|date=2015 |volume=45 |issue=1 |pages=111–112 |id={{Project MUSE|589173}} }}{{cite book|title=A Dictionary of Film Studies (Oxford Quick Reference) |author1=Annette Kuhn |author2=Guy Westwell |date=21 June 2012 |publisher=OUP Oxford |isbn=9780199587261 }}
Awards
In 1994, Kuhn was awarded a Fulbright Senior Research Scholarship to study six months at Mount Holyoke College in the Five College Women's Studies program in order to complete work on the Family Secrets project, research for "The Daughter’s Lament: Memory Work and Productions of the Self".{{Cite book|url=https://libraries.uark.edu/specialcollections/fulbrightdirectories/MC703_CIES_Box91_1994-95.pdf|title=Fulbright Scholars Program, 1994-95 Directory|publisher=Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program|year=1994|location=Washington DC|pages=33}}
In 2004, she was elected to the Fellowship of the British Academy, and in 2016 to Membership of the European Academy (Academia Europaea).{{cite web|url=http://www.britac.ac.uk/users/professor-annette-kuhn |title=Professor Annette Kuhn | British Academy |website=Britac.ac.uk |date=2015-04-09 |accessdate=2017-06-23}}{{cite web|url=http://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Kuhn_Annette |title=Academy of Europe: Kuhn Annette |website=Ae-info.org |accessdate=2017-06-23}}
The Annette Kuhn Essay Award was established by Screen in 2014, in recognition of Kuhn's outstanding contribution to Screen and her wider commitment to the development of screen studies and screen theory.{{cite web|url=http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/screen/essayaward/ |title=University of Glasgow - Services A-Z - Screen - Essay Award |website=Gla.ac.uk |accessdate=2017-06-23}}
Selected works
- Feminism and Materialism: Women and Modes of Production. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978. Co-edited.
- Ideology and Cultural Production. London: Croom Helm, 1979. Co-edited.
- Women's Pictures: Feminism and Cinema. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982; 2nd edn, Verso, 1994. Authored.
- The Power of the Image: Essays on Representation and Sexuality. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985. Authored.
- "Women's Genres," in Home Is Where the Heart Is: Studies in Melodrama and the Women's Film (ed. C. Gledhill). London: British Film Institute, 1987. Authored.{{Rp|229}}
- Cinema, Censorship and Sexuality, 1909 to 1925. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1988. Authored.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21217003/royalty_check/|title=Royalty Check|last=|date=4 March 1990|work=Observer Saturday|access-date=23 June 2018|department=People|location=London|page=53|via=Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra)}}
- Alien Zone: Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema. London: Verso, 1990. Edited.{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/sciencefictionci00king/page/125|title=Science Fiction Cinema: From Outerspace to Cyberspace|last1=King|first1=Geoff|last2=Krzywinska|first2=Tanya|publisher=Wallflower Publishing Limited|year=2000|isbn=9781903364031|series=Short Cuts: Introductions To Film Studies|location=Great Britain|pages=[https://archive.org/details/sciencefictionci00king/page/125 125]|url-access=registration|via=Internet Archive}}
- The Women's Companion to International Film. London: Virago; and Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990. Edited.
- Family Secrets: Acts of Memory and Imagination. London: Verso, 1995; rev edn, 2002. Authored.
- Queen of the Bs: Ida Lupino Behind the Camera. Bradford-on-Avon: Flicks Books; New York: Praeger, 1995. Edited.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/21225925/queen_of_the_bs_ida_lupino_behind_the/|title=Queen of the 'B's — Ida Lupino Behind the Camera|last=|date=10 September 1995|work=The Observer Review|access-date=23 June 2018|department=Books: Short Cuts|location=London|page=17|via=Newspapers.com (Publisher Extra)}}
- Screen Histories: A Screen Reader. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998. Co-edited.
- Alien Zone II: The Spaces of Science Fiction Cinema. London: Verso, 1999. Edited.
- An Everyday Magic: Cinema and Cultural Memory. London: I.B. Tauris, 2002. Published in the US as Dreaming of Fred and Ginger: Cinema and Cultural Memory. New York: New York University Press. Authored.
- Screening World Cinema: a Screen Reader. London: Routledge, 2006. Co-edited.
- Locating Memory: Photographic Acts. Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books, 2006. Co-edited.
- Ratcatcher. London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008. Authored.
- Screen Theorizing Today: A Celebration of Screen’s Fiftieth Anniversary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Edited.
- The Oxford Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press, 2012. Co-authored.{{cite web|url=http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199587261.do|publisher=Ukcatalogue.oup.com|title=A Dictionary of Film Studies - Annette Kuhn; Guy Westwell - Oxford University Press|accessdate=10 September 2016}}
- Little Madnesses: Winnicott, Transitional Phenomena and Cultural Experience. London: I.B. Tauris, 2013. Edited.{{cite web|url=http://www.ibtauris.com/Books/Society%20%20social%20sciences/Society%20%20culture%20general/Cultural%20studies/Little%20Madnesses%20Winnicot%20Transitional%20Phenomena%20%20Cultural%20Experience.aspx|publisher=ibtauris.com|title=Little Madnesses: Winnicott, Transitional Phenomena & Cultural Experience|accessdate=10 September 2016}}
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
External links
- {{cite web |url=https://qmul.academia.edu/annettekuhn |title=Annette Kuhn | Queen Mary, University of London - Academia.edu |website=Qmul.academia.edu |accessdate=2017-06-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160605125401/http://qmul.academia.edu/annettekuhn |archive-date=2016-06-05 |url-status=dead }}
- {{cite web|url=http://filmstudies.sllf.qmul.ac.uk/filmstudies/people/kuhn.html |title=People - Annette Kuhn Film Studies |website=Filmstudies.sllf.qmul.ac.uk |accessdate=2017-06-23}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kuhn, Annette}}
Category:Fellows of the British Academy
Category:Academics of Queen Mary University of London