Feminist Media Histories
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femmediahist.bsky.social
Feminist Media Histories
@femmediahist.bsky.social
Feminist Media Histories examines the role gender has played in media across a range of historical periods and global contexts. Published quarterly by UC Press.

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Our Fall 2025 issue "Notes on Historical Methods" is now live! In her introduction, Katherine Groo reflects on the voices of historical writing, the long history of feminist methods, and the guiding concept and structure of the "note" itself.

Open access for a limited time:
doi.org/10.1525/fmh....
What are the risks—and opportunities—of drawing close to one's objects of study as a feminist scholar? Alix Beeston reflects on her experience of writing a critical–creative account of women and girls in photography history. @alixbeeston.bsky.social

Open access now: doi.org/10.1525/fmh....
November 12, 2025 at 11:39 PM
Carly Kocurek's digital collage "Becoming Lara" imagines a middle-aged Lara Croft through the lens of an imagined feature in a women's magazine @sparklebliss.bsky.social

Open access now!
online.ucpress.edu/.../11/3/118...
November 5, 2025 at 3:46 AM
Our Fall 2025 issue "Notes on Historical Methods" is now live! In her introduction, Katherine Groo reflects on the voices of historical writing, the long history of feminist methods, and the guiding concept and structure of the "note" itself.

Open access for a limited time:
doi.org/10.1525/fmh....
October 30, 2025 at 1:13 AM
In 11(3), Samantha Blackmon's Critical Let’s Play video looks at how colonization has seeped into the very mechanics of the latest installment in the Tomb Raider series—a mechanic she calls "Magic Colonizer Fingers."

Open access for two weeks!
doi.org/10.1525/fmh....
October 22, 2025 at 3:00 PM
In 11.3, Rukmini Pande discusses how Lara Croft’s fans try and retrace her steps in real-world settings of the Tomb Raider universe, reinscribing the colonialist mechanics of the game on these locations. Read it for free!
online.ucpress.edu/fmh/article/...
“You Can Be Lara Croft Too!”Examining the Extractive Colonial Logics of Tomb Raider Fan Tourism in Cambodia
Cultural heritage has been substantively identified as a vital motivator for tourism. An additional significant driver of visitor interest to specific historical locations is the influence of media pr...
online.ucpress.edu
October 8, 2025 at 2:40 AM
For your GRADUATE students! Submissions for the SCMS Gender and Feminisms Caucus Graduate Student Writing Prize are due in ONE month on November 1, 2025. The winning essay will be published (subject to revision) in FMH.

online.ucpress.edu/fmh/pages/aw...
Awards | Feminist Media Histories | University of California Press
Awards | Feminist Media Histories | University of California Press Awards   SCMS Gender and Feminisms Caucus Graduate Student Writing Prize   The SCMS Gender and Feminisms ...
online.ucpress.edu
October 1, 2025 at 10:40 PM
FREE RESEARCH ARTICLE! Why did writers say Lara Croft was trans? What was her actual relationship to the “male gamer”? Look out for a guest appearance by Mario, and for the author’s own trans memories from the y2k era.

online.ucpress.edu/fmh/article/...
The Male Gamer and the Transness of Lara Croft
This article takes seriously two things: that Lara Croft is trans, and that I, a trans masculine games scholar and game maker, was a male gamer. Many scholars have rightly challenged the assumption th...
online.ucpress.edu
September 23, 2025 at 10:48 PM
New free article!

“Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft” explores the legacy of her star turn in Simon West’s 2001 blockbuster (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider), connecting it to fascinating shifts in women as top-billed, blockbuster action stars around the turn of the century.

online.ucpress.edu/fmh/article/...
Angelina Jolie as Lara CroftGender, Celebrity, and Transnational Cinema
This article explores the multifaceted legacy of Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft with a focus on the first film devoted to the popular video game character, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. It presents Jolie’s p...
online.ucpress.edu
September 10, 2025 at 8:39 PM
New free article! 😍

In this article, Trung M. Nguyen interrogates the issue of looted non-Western cultural objects by examining the performances of two women: Lara Croft and Sophiline Cheam-Shapiro, renowned Cambodian artist and dancer.

online.ucpress.edu/fmh/article/...
Stolen ObjectsLara Croft the Tomb Raider vs. Sophiline Cheam-Shapiro the Cambodian Dancer
This article positions Angelina Jolie’s performance as Lara Croft in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) next to Sophiline Cheam-Shapiro’s unsanctioned Cambodian classical dance at the Metropolitan Museum ...
online.ucpress.edu
August 26, 2025 at 6:44 PM
Free article! 🙂

Lara Croft has been viewed as a feminist icon for decades but her deep-seated colonial bias has often been ignored. In this article, Souvik Mukherjee explores the problematic coloniality of Lara as the 'tomb raider.'

online.ucpress.edu/fmh/article/...
online.ucpress.edu
August 13, 2025 at 8:38 PM
The 11.3 issue of FMH is live! 🤩🥳

This issue is devoted to the 30th anniversary of Lara Croft, with every article discussing the character and the Tomb Raider franchise!

You can read the editors' introduction, written by Amanda Phillips and Josef Nguyen, below:

online.ucpress.edu/fmh/article/...
On 30 Years of Lara Croft
Thirty years ago, a star emerged.This Feminist Media Histories special issue prepares for the 30th anniversary of the introduction of video game character-turned-pop culture icon Lara Croft in 2026. F...
online.ucpress.edu
July 25, 2025 at 4:33 PM
We have a new CFP!

A special issue on Feminist Archaeologies of Desktop media, guest edited by Jiří Anger & Veronika Hanáková.

The deadline for proposals is October 28, 2025.

Read the full CFP below:

online.ucpress.edu/fmh/pages/cfp
Call for Papers | Feminist Media Histories | University of California Press
Call for Papers | Feminist Media Histories | University of California Press CALLS FOR PAPERS Special Issue on the Long 1970s Guest Editors: Navaneetha Mokkil & Nitya Vasudevan Pr...
online.ucpress.edu
July 15, 2025 at 11:55 PM
New free article!

In this essay, Katerina Korola looks at filmmaker and zoologist Lola Kreutzberg's ethnographic film Bali, das Wunderlan (1927), and assesses the construction of the Weimar New Woman in a wider colonial field.

online.ucpress.edu/fmh/article/...
The New Woman as EthnographerLola Kreutzberg in the Dutch East Indies
In 1926, the German zoologist, photographer, and filmmaker Lola Kreutzberg toured the Indonesian archipelago, gathering material for her now lost film Bali, das Wunderland (Bali, the Isle of Wonders, ...
online.ucpress.edu
July 15, 2025 at 11:48 PM
Free article alert! 💞

In this essay, Ankita Deb examines how nontheatrical films on sex education from Europe and North America were recirculated by B-circuit filmmakers in India and, in so doing, suffused with feminist and queer possibilities.

online.ucpress.edu/fmh/article/...
Sensationalizing Nontheatrical CinemaThe Feminist and Queer Possibilities of Sex Education Films in Postcolonial India
In this essay, I examine how nontheatrical films on sex education from Europe and North America were recirculated by B-circuit filmmakers in India and in so doing suffused them with feminist and queer...
online.ucpress.edu
July 1, 2025 at 12:39 PM
New free article! 🥳

Liz Czach shines a light on Judith Crawley whose film, Four New Apple Dishes (1940), makes evident how some women-identified filmmakers made nontheatrical films for and about women.

online.ucpress.edu/fmh/article/...
Nontheatrical Films for WomenJudith Crawley’s Four New Apple Dishes (1940)
In 1940 Judith Crawley was commissioned by John Grierson, head of the National Film Board of Canada, to make a film about cooking with apples. The resulting film, Four New Apple Dishes, made on the ec...
online.ucpress.edu
June 16, 2025 at 9:55 PM
We have a new free article! 🥰

In this essay, Sonia García López and Marina Cavalcanti Tedesco explore the life and work of Rosina Prado, a Spanish-Soviet anti-fascist filmmaker who made documentaries at the ICAIC (Cuba) in the 1960s.

online.ucpress.edu/fmh/article/...
Crossing National Borders and Nontheatrical BoundariesThe Film Work of Rosina Prado
This article contributes to recovering the lost history of Rosina Prado’s work. Prado was a Spanish-Soviet filmmaker who, along with Sara Gómez, was one of the first women to direct films in Cuba, whe...
online.ucpress.edu
June 3, 2025 at 6:57 PM
We have a new CFP!

A special issue on the Long 1970s guest edited by Navaneetha Mokkil and Nitya Vasudevan!

Submission deadline is August 1, 2025.

Read the full CFP here: online.ucpress.edu/fmh/pages/cfp
Call for Papers | Feminist Media Histories | University of California Press
Call for Papers | Feminist Media Histories | University of California Press CALLS FOR PAPERS Special Issue on the Long 1970s Guest Editors: Navaneetha Mokkil & Nitya Vasudevan Pr...
online.ucpress.edu
May 16, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Free article alert!

In the piece, Jasmyn Castro explores the success African American WACs (Women’s Army Corps) experienced, and the challenging assumptions and beliefs that affected the trajectory of Black women in technical film trades.

online.ucpress.edu/fmh/article/...
A License to ProjectBlack Female Projectionists and “Men’s Work” in the US Women’s Army Corps
During World War II, African American WACs (Women’s Army Corps) served as “motion picture operators,” representing a significant yet overlooked history at the intersection of nontheatrical film studie...
online.ucpress.edu
May 14, 2025 at 10:12 PM
The 11.2 issue of Feminist Media Histories is live! 🤩

This issue is devoted to "Nontheatrical Medias" and is guest edited by Tanya Goldman and Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa.

You can read their introduction below:
online.ucpress.edu/fmh/article/...
Editors’ Introduction
The December 1931 issue of International Review of Educational Technology—a monthly publication sponsored by the League of Nations’ International Educational Cinematographic Institute—begins with an e...
online.ucpress.edu
April 29, 2025 at 4:10 PM
Happy Transgender Day of Visibility! 🏳️‍⚧️💗

To celebrate, we have made several of our essays that focus on trans scholarship free to access throughout this week!

🧵
March 31, 2025 at 8:03 PM
Free article! 🤩

In this essay, Ryan Nhu looks at Suzanne, Suzanne (1982) and Finding Christa (1991) in relation to how they defamiliarize familial relationships and democratize care work in ways that resonate with the motives of family abolitionism.

online.ucpress.edu/fmh/article/...
Break Yourself at HomeThe Queer Hospitality of Camille Billops and James V. Hatch
Since the heyday of Billops-Hatch film criticism in the 1990s, critics have noted the generic indeterminacy of the Family Trilogy. These accounts have illuminated the films’ complex fusion of autobiog...
online.ucpress.edu
March 24, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Free article! 😄

In this essay, Michele Prettyman analyzes the film Older Women and Love (1987) as a case study and commentary on the complexity of women’s self-possession as they navigate sexual intimacy, aging, relationships to their bodies, and death.

online.ucpress.edu/fmh/article/...
Woman, Alone? Camille Billops, Self-Possession, and Older Women and Love (1987)
This essay “Woman, Alone? Camille Billops, Self-Possession, and Older Women and Love (1987)” focuses on the unique dynamics in the personal and professional relationship between Camille Billops and Ja...
online.ucpress.edu
March 14, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Free article! 😄

Ruth Feldstein's essay looks at Camille Billops and perhaps her most famous film, Finding Christa (1991). This essay illuminates the different strategies that Black women filmmakers employed to produce a multifaceted Black feminism.

online.ucpress.edu/fmh/article/...
Framing Finding ChristaBlack Feminisms and Films
This essay considers Camille Billops and perhaps her most famous film, Finding Christa (1991), in relation to other Black women filmmakers. Like Billops, Alile Sharon Larkin, one of the first Black wo...
online.ucpress.edu
March 6, 2025 at 8:39 PM
Along with the publication of her essay on Hattie Noel in our 11.1 issue, grad essay award-winner Samantha Silver sat down with the folks at @ucpress.bsky.social and discussed the significance of Noel's career.

You can read the entire interview here:
www.ucpress.edu/blog-posts/u...
February 24, 2025 at 11:42 PM
This week's free article is authored by Samantha Silver, winner of the SCMS Gender and Feminisms Grad Student Writing Award!

Silver’s article looks at comedian, actor, and blues singer Hattie Noel and traces the history between the blues and stand-up comedy.

online.ucpress.edu/fmh/article/...
“Funnier Than Moms Mabley”The Stand-Up Comedy of Hattie Noel
This article examines the stand-up comedy albums of comedian and blues singer Hattie Noel released in the 1960s. Her career reveals previously unrecognized connections between the classic blues of the...
online.ucpress.edu
February 24, 2025 at 11:33 PM