Professor Emeritus Elizabeth Cowie
After graduating with a degree in history, politics and sociology I worked in publishing, and became editorial assistant for the journal Screen from 1972 to 1976 at a time when it was transforming debates about cinema and culture through its often controversial introduction of new French approaches to film, including semiotic and psychoanalytic theories. My involvement in these debates led to my change in career, and I began a post-graduate degree at the Slade School of Art, while I edited the 1978 catalogue of films funded by the British Film Institute Production Board, involving avant-garde and independent short and feature length films, and as well as teaching film at a number of institutions and universities in London.
At the same time I was also involved in feminism, through discussion groups, working on issues of women and film, and then founded the feminist theory journal, m/f, with Parveen Adams and Rosalind Coward,with Beverley Brown joining us later. The journal, which published 10 single and two double issues between 1978-1986, was committed to developing theoretical work on the social and psychical organisation of sexual difference, drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and of Jacques Lacan in his ‘return to Freud’. A collection from the journal was published as The Woman in Question, edited by Parveen Adams and Elizabeth Cowie, by MIT Press in 1990 and a digital version is forthcoming.
I came to the University of Kent in 1981 to teach on its new programme in Film Studies and the department has since grown to become one of the UK’s foremost university centres for undergraduate and postgraduate study of film, television, and film practice.
At the same time I was also involved in feminism, through discussion groups, working on issues of women and film, and then founded the feminist theory journal, m/f, with Parveen Adams and Rosalind Coward,with Beverley Brown joining us later. The journal, which published 10 single and two double issues between 1978-1986, was committed to developing theoretical work on the social and psychical organisation of sexual difference, drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and of Jacques Lacan in his ‘return to Freud’. A collection from the journal was published as The Woman in Question, edited by Parveen Adams and Elizabeth Cowie, by MIT Press in 1990 and a digital version is forthcoming.
I came to the University of Kent in 1981 to teach on its new programme in Film Studies and the department has since grown to become one of the UK’s foremost university centres for undergraduate and postgraduate study of film, television, and film practice.
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Papers by Professor Emeritus Elizabeth Cowie
Rouch draws upon.
In documentary film we encounter the stories of others who speak themselves through their words. We listen to them. How do we hear, and what do we learn, and is this what they intend us to know and hear? In this essay I explore the place of the voice and its speech in relation to the body in documentary film through With Jerzy Grotowski, Nienadówka, 1980, made with Grotowski by Jill Godmilow. Jerzy Grotowski (1933 - 1999) was a Polish experimental theatre director and major innovator through his idea of the theatre as laboratory and his concept of ‘poor theatre’. He is, with Artaud and Brecht, Stanislavski and Mayerhold, a figure of central importance to twentieth century theatre developments.
The idea of the journal developed following the ‘Patriarchy Conference’ held in London on 15/16 May1976, which was organised by a collective of women from a number of feminist study groups - primarily in London but connecting widely across Britain - who had begun to see a need for a larger forum to discuss the development of theoretical ideas within the Women’s Movement. Several of us who later became the m/f editorial group helped organise the conference and contributed to the subsequent publication of papers given at the conference in a collection, The Patriarchy Papers, published by the Women’s Publishing Collective in December 1976. Following the conference we felt the need for a new journal that would develop debate, and m/f was created with Parveen Adams, Rosalind Coward and Elizabeth Cowie as editors, later joined by Beverley Brown, with the first issue appearing in February 1978. Rosalind Coward left the journal later in the same year, shortly after the second issue, We continued the practice of editorials till number 5/6 in 1981. In 1983 Beverley Brown took up a post in Australia.
Drafts by Professor Emeritus Elizabeth Cowie
Rouch draws upon.
In documentary film we encounter the stories of others who speak themselves through their words. We listen to them. How do we hear, and what do we learn, and is this what they intend us to know and hear? In this essay I explore the place of the voice and its speech in relation to the body in documentary film through With Jerzy Grotowski, Nienadówka, 1980, made with Grotowski by Jill Godmilow. Jerzy Grotowski (1933 - 1999) was a Polish experimental theatre director and major innovator through his idea of the theatre as laboratory and his concept of ‘poor theatre’. He is, with Artaud and Brecht, Stanislavski and Mayerhold, a figure of central importance to twentieth century theatre developments.
The idea of the journal developed following the ‘Patriarchy Conference’ held in London on 15/16 May1976, which was organised by a collective of women from a number of feminist study groups - primarily in London but connecting widely across Britain - who had begun to see a need for a larger forum to discuss the development of theoretical ideas within the Women’s Movement. Several of us who later became the m/f editorial group helped organise the conference and contributed to the subsequent publication of papers given at the conference in a collection, The Patriarchy Papers, published by the Women’s Publishing Collective in December 1976. Following the conference we felt the need for a new journal that would develop debate, and m/f was created with Parveen Adams, Rosalind Coward and Elizabeth Cowie as editors, later joined by Beverley Brown, with the first issue appearing in February 1978. Rosalind Coward left the journal later in the same year, shortly after the second issue, We continued the practice of editorials till number 5/6 in 1981. In 1983 Beverley Brown took up a post in Australia.