Theory of the Image: Capitalism, Contemporary Film, and Women

"Just about everything in this book is fresh and exciting." —Carol Siegel

Ann Kibbey’s Theory of the Image is based on a concept of the image as a dynamic relation rather than a thing. In three essays Kibbey contends that the image itself is an ideological construct. "The Capitalist Theory of the Image" argues that capitalism enforces social identity and fetishism through religious iconoclastic beliefs about the commodity as image. "Liberating a Woman from Her Image" creates a new feminist approach to women in film, breaking the symbiosis of woman and image at the heart of previous theory. "Relief from the Production of Certainties" challenges conservative and racist agendas informing the assumption that a photograph records an image. The book draws on extensive personal interviews and also provides detailed explications of important films in recent transnational cinema to demonstrate new theories of the image for a global society.