Screening Queer Memory - (Library of Gender and Popular Culture) by Anamarija Horvat (Paperback)

About the Book

"In Screening Queer Memory, Anamarija Horvat examines how LGBTQ history has been represented on-screen, and interrogates the specificity of queer memory. She poses several questions: How are the pasts of LGBTQ people and communities visualised and commemorated on screen? How do these representations comment on the influence of film and television on the construction of queer memory? How do they present the passage of memory from one generation of LGBTQ people to another? Finally, which narratives of the queer past, particularly of the activist past, are being commemorated, and which obscured? Horvat exemplifies how contemporary British and American cinema and television have commented on the specificity of queer memory - how they have reflected aspects of its construction, as well as participated in its creation. In doing so, she adds to an under-examined area of queer film and television research which has privileged concepts of nostalgia, history, temporality and the archive over memory. Films and television shows explored include Cheryl Dunye's The Watermelon Woman (1996), Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine (1998), Jill Soloway's Transparent (2014), Matthew Warchus' Pride (2014) and Tom Rob Smith's London Spy (2015)"--

Book Synopsis

In Screening Queer Memory, Anamarija Horvat examines how LGBTQ history has been represented on-screen, and interrogates the specificity of queer memory. She poses several questions: How are the pasts of LGBTQ people and communities visualised and commemorated on screen? How do these representations comment on the influence of film and television on the construction of queer memory? How do they present the passage of memory from one generation of LGBTQ people to another? Finally, which narratives of the queer past, particularly of the activist past, are being commemorated, and which obscured?

Horvat exemplifies how contemporary British and American cinema and television have commented on the specificity of queer memory - how they have reflected aspects of its construction, as well as participated in its creation. In doing so, she adds to an under-examined area of queer film and television research which has privileged concepts of nostalgia, history, temporality and the archive over memory. Films and television shows explored include Cheryl Dunye's The Watermelon Woman (1996), Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine (1998), Joey Soloway's Transparent (2014-2019), Matthew Warchus' Pride (2014) and Tom Rob Smith's London Spy (2015).

Review Quotes

"Screening Queer Memory is a timely, exuberant research of contemporary cinematic constructions of personal and communal queer memories, histories, legacies and heritages. It provides a genuine, fresh perspective on the intricate interrelations between queer histories and queer cinemas." --Gilad Padva, Tel Aviv University, Israel

"Drawing on cutting-edge theories that are expertly woven into perceptive analyses of up-to-the-minute films and television programs from the UK and the US, Anamarija Horvat's timely and necessary book Screening Queer Memory demonstrates exactly how LGBTQ+ pasts can be memorialized, celebrated, passed down to future generations, and productively critiqued in the early twenty-first century." --Anthony Guy Patricia, Concord University, USA

About the Author

Anamarija Horvat is a researcher in film and television studies, queer theory, and gender studies. She has published on subjects including LGBTQ memory, intersectionality, and queer migration in contemporary television, with her work appearing in journals such as Feminist Media Studies and Critical Studies in Television, as well as in The International Encyclopaedia of Gender, Media and Communication and The Oxford Encyclopaedia of Queer Studies and Communication. She has recently completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Edinburgh's Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, is co-founder of the Queer Screens Network, and co-chair of the NECS (European Network for Cinema and Media Studies) Queer and Feminist Workgroup.