Academic Articles
A few recent articles by Deborah Shaw. See CV for more.
Academic Articles
Sense8 and sensibility, or how it became necessary to queer the world in order to save it by Deborah Shaw and Rob Stone
Dreamt up by Lana and Lilly Wachowski and J. Michael Straczynski for Netflix, Sense8 dropped onto the global streaming platform on 5 June 2015. The first episode introduced a multinational ensemble cast playing eight strangers from different parts of the world.
A Tale of Two Feminisms: Gender Critical Feminism, Trans inclusive Feminism and the Case of Kathleen Stock
ARTICLE DOI: 10.1080/09612025.2022.2147915
Deborah Shaw Women's History Review
In this article I write on the rift between trans inclusive and gender critical feminists in the UK. I consider this division within university culture through a focus on the case of Kathleen Stock. I discuss the coverage of her resignation from the University of Sussex through a focus on The Daily Telegraph. From a trans inclusive feminist viewpoint, I discuss the way her case has been used to spread misinformation around universities, and trans people. I examine the key ideas of gender critical and trans inclusive feminists and present an analysis of concepts of free speech and debate that challenges gender critical beliefs. I end with a call for a way forward to strengthen feminism.
Chilean and Transnational Performances of Disobedience: LasTesis and the Phenomenon of ‘Un violador en tu camino’, Bulletin of Latin American Research
Co-written with Deborah Martin.
This article analyses the performance Un violador en tu camino created by Chilean feminist theatre collective LasTesis, shared by millions and re-staged across the globe. It explores the relationship between the original piece and theorist Rita Segato's insights on rape culture, and how it counters aspects of this culture. It examines how the transnational spread of Un violador counters tendencies of MeToo, and examines four cases of the performance's re-staging in Latin America and beyond, showing how they make manifest the pervasiveness of rape culture as well as how groups have adapted them to speak to local issues.
The right to rights and Central American/Mexican migration films: Reading Sin nombre (Fukunaga 2009) and La jaula de oro/The Golden Dream (Quemada-Díez 2013) with political theory
In this article, I argue in favour of using political and social theory as a framework for reading Central American and Mexican migration films, using Sin nombre (Fukunaga 2009) and La jaula de oro/The Golden Dream (Quemada-Díez 2013) as case studies. Key ideas of Hannah Arendt, Giorgio Agamben, Zygmunt Bauman and Judith Butler can yield important insights when applied to the readings of migration films. My particular interest here is their conceptualizations of the scale of value applied to human life, and the resulting right to rights, or failure to be granted rights, as this is particularly apposite to the condition of migrants and refugees and to the role of film in creating value. A central argument is that film has a specific role in challenging or endorsing the negative values placed on the lives of migrant/refugees in hegemonic political and media discourses.
Whose film is it anyway? The battle over auteur status between Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga, Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinemas
Director Alejandro González Iñárritu and screenwriter and novelist Guillermo Arriaga worked together on three, highly successful films – Amores perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003) and Babel (2006). Yet, theirs was a troubled partnership and ended in a public feud. Arriaga stressed his creative primacy in the projects they worked on and downplayed the input of the director, while Iñárritu underplayed Arriaga’s contribution after Amores perros. Finally, during the making of Babel, these tensions came to a head and their collaboration came to an acrimonious end over irreconcilably different notions of what we might term ‘creative credit’. This well-known collaboration, feud and separation tell a story of creative partnerships, film industry working practices, power plays and media manipulations.
