Laura Mulvey

Laura Mulvey was born in Oxford on 15 August 1941. After studying history at St. Hilda's, Oxford University, she came to prominence in the early 1970s as a film theorist, writing for periodicals such as Spare Rib and Seven Days. Much of her early critical work investigated questions of spectatorial identification and its relationship to the male gaze, and her writings, particularly the 1975 essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, helped establish feminist film theory as a legitimate field of study.

Between 1974 and 1982 Mulvey co-wrote and co-directed with her husband, Peter Wollen, six projects: theoretical films, dealing in the discourse of feminist theory, semiotics, psychoanalysis and leftist politics. These include: Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons (1974), Riddles of the Sphinx (1977), AMY! (1980), Crystal Gazing (1982), Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti (1982) and The Bad Sister (1982). After these, Mulvey did not return to film-making until 1991 when production began on her solo project Disgraced Monuments, an examination of the fate of revolutionary monuments in the Soviet Union after the fall of communism.

During the 2008-2009 academic year, Laura Mulvey was the Mary Cornille Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Humanities at Wellesley College. She is currently a professor of film and media studies at Birbeck College, University of London. (7/12)

Amy! and Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti
Two films by Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen, Color/BW
WMM is pleased to release two early works by renowned film scholar Laura Mulvey, co-written and co-directed with Peter Wollen. Mulvey came to prominen...

Riddles of the Sphinx
A film by Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen, 1977, 92 min., Color
Laura Mulvey, author of the seminal essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema , helped to establish feminist film theory as a legitimate field...