Spectator, Fetish, Gaze

This thesis argues for a contemporary concept of the gaze. A brief history of film and of psychoanalysis sets up the history of the spectator, of the fetish and of the gaze. From this context, the contemporary spectating process is examined through the film "Boys don't cry".

Thin white women in advertising : deathly corporeality

This article examines the way that contemporary British women’s magazine advertising employs idealized images of thin white women to confer status on a range of beauty products and services. These lean, pure, radiant images of white women are imagined to be natural sources of light, beauty, and the entry point (with the product) to a higher state of female grace. However, the article also addresses what is argued to be the ‘absence’ effect and the lack of corporeal life that is also at the core of many of these ‘lacking’ images of white women. The article argues that such textual ruptures and contradictions, in turn, point to the way that thinness itself, as a self-willed body project, can be considered to be a resistant body practice, or one that draws attention to the life and death struggle at the heart of what it means to be a ‘good’ white woman in a patriarchal society

Storytelling and professional learning

This essay explores the role that storytelling might play in the professional learning of English teachers. It begins by reflecting on the ways that stories shape our everyday lives, and then considers how the meaning-making potential of storytelling might enable us to gain insights into our work as educators. This is in contradistinction to the 'knowledge' currently privileged by standards­ based reforms, most notably the fetish of measurement reflected in standardised testing. The essay concludes that stories are not simply a form of knowing but a vital means of making the world human to us.

Storytelling and professional learning

This essay explores the role that storytelling might play in the professional learning of English teachers. It begins by reflecting on the ways that stories shape our everyday lives, and then considers how the meaning-making potential of storytelling might enable us to gain insights into our work as educators. This is in contradistinction to the ‘knowledge’ currently privileged by standards-based reforms, most notably the fetish of measurement reflected in standardized testing. The essay concludes that stories are not simply a form of knowing but a vital means of making the world human to us.

Book review: screening sex

The beginning of the twenty-first century witnessed a proliferation of screened sex, often in ways that were unimaginable even ten or fifteen years earlier. Screenings of real, amateur, professional, live and fetish sex are all easily (and often freely) available to anyone with access to a computer or, increasingly, with a smartphone or wireless device at their disposal. As screenings of sex and the screens of sex multiply – and as concern around the presence of these screens and screenings heightens – a closer examination of the history of sex on screen has never been more vital. This is precisely the project of Linda Williams’ Screening sex.