Lesbian Cinema after Queer Theory
By Clara Bradbury-Rance

The unprecedented increase in lesbian representation over the past two decades has, paradoxically, coincided with queer theory's radical transformation of the study of sexuality. Lesbian Cinema after Queer Theory argues that this contradictory context has yielded new kinds of cinematic language through which to give desire visual form. By offering close readings of key contemporary films such as Blue Is the Warmest Colour, Water Lilies and Carol alongside a broader filmography encompassing over three hundred other films released between 1927 and 2018, the book provokes new ways of understanding a changing field of representation.

Author Clara Bradbury-Rance resists charting a narrative of representational progress or shoring up lesbian categorisation in the newly available terms of the visible. Instead, she argues for a feminist framework that can understand lesbianism's queerness. Drawing on a provocative theoretical and visual corpus, Lesbian Cinema after Queer Theory reveals the conditions of lesbian legibility in the twenty-first century.

Clara Bradbury-Rance is an Early Career Fellow in Liberal Arts at King's College London. Her research focuses on the intersectional study of sexuality and gender in film, popular culture and new media.