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Reading hieroglyphs behind glass: A glimpse of reparative feminism in Riddles of the Sphinx (1977)

Reading hieroglyphs behind glass: A glimpse of reparative feminism in Riddles of the Sphinx (1977) This article examines Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen’s 1977 avant-garde essay film Riddles of the Sphinx as a cinematic text that makes the museum a site for imagining psychoanalytic feminism as a reparative reading practice. I argue that the film questions gender and race as “musealized” images that make predetermined essences present, and offers instead images of working through the damages of sexism and racism that erode the familiar poles of idealization and denigration. Focused on the psychic life of a middle-class white woman as she begins extricating herself from the narrow confines that white patriarchal culture has allotted her, Riddles revises the visual logics of castration, which opens the possibility that white women can, instead of defending themselves against shame, respond to the forms of sexism and racism that write Black women’s lives. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png "Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society" Springer Journals

Reading hieroglyphs behind glass: A glimpse of reparative feminism in Riddles of the Sphinx (1977)

"Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society" , Volume 27 (1) – Mar 1, 2022

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References (43)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2022
ISSN
1088-0763
eISSN
1543-3390
DOI
10.1057/s41282-022-00289-x
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This article examines Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen’s 1977 avant-garde essay film Riddles of the Sphinx as a cinematic text that makes the museum a site for imagining psychoanalytic feminism as a reparative reading practice. I argue that the film questions gender and race as “musealized” images that make predetermined essences present, and offers instead images of working through the damages of sexism and racism that erode the familiar poles of idealization and denigration. Focused on the psychic life of a middle-class white woman as she begins extricating herself from the narrow confines that white patriarchal culture has allotted her, Riddles revises the visual logics of castration, which opens the possibility that white women can, instead of defending themselves against shame, respond to the forms of sexism and racism that write Black women’s lives.

Journal

"Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society"Springer Journals

Published: Mar 1, 2022

Keywords: psychoanalytic feminism; working through; white women; shame; dark continents; racial trauma

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