Porn studies

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by Linda Williams

Type: Studies
Subject: Genre > Porn films
Keywords: pornographic films, sociology
Publishing date: 2004
Publisher: Duke University Press
Language: English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 516 pages
6 x 9 ¼ inches (15.5 x 23.5 cm)

ISBN-10 ISBN-13

0-8223-3300-7
978-0-8223-3300-5

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Book Presentation:
In her pioneering book Hard Core, Linda Williams put moving-image pornography on the map of contemporary scholarship with her analysis of the most popular and enduring of all film and video genres. Now, fifteen years later, she showcases the next generation of critical thinking about pornography and signals new directions for study and teaching. Porn Studies resists the tendency to situate pornography as the outer limit of what can be studied and discussed. With revenues totaling between ten and fourteen billion dollars annually—more than the combined revenues of professional football, basketball, and baseball—visual, hard-core pornography is a central feature of American popular culture. It is time, Williams contends, for scholars to recognize this and give pornography a serious and extended analysis.
The essays in this volume move beyond feminist debates and distinctions between a “good” erotica and a “bad” hard core. Contributors examine varieties of pornography from the tradition of the soft-core pin-up through the contemporary hard-core tradition of straight, gay, and lesbian videos and dvds to the burgeoning phenomenon of pornography on the Internet. They explore, as examples of the genre, individual works as divergent as The Starr Report, the pirated Tommy Lee/Pamela Anderson honeymoon video, and explicit Japanese “ladies’ comics” consumed by women. They also probe difficult issues such as the sexualization of race and class and the relationship of pornography to the avant-garde. To take pornography seriously as an object of analysis also means teaching it. Porn Studies thus includes a useful annotated bibliography of readings and archival sources important to the study of pornography as a cultural form.
Contributors. Heather Butler, Rich Cante, Jake Gerli, Minette Hillyer, Nguyen Tan Hoang, Despina Kakoudaki, Franklin Melendez, Ara Osterweil, Zabet Patterson, Constance Penley, Angelo Restivo, Eric Schaefer, Michael Sicinski, Deborah Shamoon, Maria St. John, Tom Waugh, Linda Williams

About the Author:
Linda Williams is Professor of Film Studies and Rhetoric and Director of the Program in Film Studies and of the Center for New Media at the University of California, Berkeley. Her books include Playing the Race Card: Melodramas of Black and White from Uncle Tom to O. J. Simpson; Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the “Frenzy of the Visible”; and Viewing Positions: Ways of Seeing Film.

Press Reviews:
"[A] book that fearlessly engages the mostly hesitant academic discourse on sex with a much-needed frankness.... Williams’ collection is ... thoughtful, readable, and important. Above and beyond the pornographic ob/scenity it offers, Porn Studies permits tantalizing views of discursive possibilities in an academy that for now inevitably seems to gravitate towards the reassuring safety of theory in discussions of pornography, sex, and sexuality." - Maude M. Adjarian , Archives of Sexual Behavior

"Although Williams's book takes no sides in the cultural debates about whether pornography itself is good, bad, or indifferent, she makes a compelling argument for why it ought to be taught, understood, and analyzed to avoid simplistic misrepresentations. . . . Williams's book provides a toolkit for understanding the narratives, images, and effects of the pornographic culture in which we live." - Elizabeth Birmingham , NWSA Journal

"Pornography as a thing to study has frequently been prudishly pushed aside. Linda Williams’ new book, Porn Studies, announces the arrival of serious work that should prove the topic’s insistence on sticking around." - Judy Margo , Culture, Health & Sexuality

"The entire collection constitutes an excellent sampling of how pornographies are to be analyzed once we move beyond traditional debates of censorship, ethics, and what one could now consider ‘traditional’ feminism. . . . Such a collection offers a welcome contribution in the serious academic and intellectual understanding of a robust and worthy subject matter." - Mark Dietrich Tschaepe , Metapsychology Online Reviews

"Porn Studies is a valuable read for anyone wanting a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of where society has come from, where it is now, and the possibilities of where it will go." - Lee Winston , M/C Reviews

"Porn Studies makes an important new step in the new discourse on the subject, since the collection considers pornography not just, as did Hard Core, a cinematographic genre, but as cultural practice. . . . [I]t is the intertwining of historical background information and visual close reading that makes the strength of contributions. . . ." - Jan Baetens, Image and Narrative

"[S]mart, readable, and provocative essays. . . . Williams's anthology illuminates images that most of us simply take for granted only as ways to get turned-on and get-off." - Michael Bronski, The Guide

"With Porn Studies, Williams and her contributors have opened a door-they've made it possible for intelligent people to discuss porn in more or less polite company. This accomplishment alone is worth celebrating. I look forward to what comes next in the field." - Annalee Newitz , Cineaste

"One of the collection's many strengths is the combination of breadth of scope and depth of analysis in its 17 chapters. . . . Porn Studies is an entertaining and extremely useful book for researchers and students in screen studies, gender studies, sociology and media and cultural studies." - Kath Albury, Media International Australia

"Over the course of many years, many seminar courses, Linda Williams has specialized in this domain that the classic university disciplines have long ostracized. The balance of [her] studies were published a few months ago under the title Porn Studies, certainly the most passionate collection of essays and analysis that has ever been assembled on this burning question." (Translated from the French) - Olivier Seguret , Libération

"Pretty much every aspect of porn is discussed—except 19th-century naughty postcards—up to and including the Internet. No time is wasted on whether there is 'good' erotica and 'bad' porn. Williams' bold thesis is that porn exists, has value, and deserves to be both studied and taught." - Richard Labonte, Books to Watch out For

"The anthology's 16 essays . . . deliciously, disturbingly blur the traditionally solid line between the intellectual and the sexual, and that's part of the point. . . . These essays courageously suggest that there is great pleasure in exploring the spaces between polemics and sensationalism." - Maria Elena Buszek, Bust

"The tone is sensible, even as some wonderfully sensational material is covered. . . . There are also some excellent histories here. . . . The book will certainly help 'the teacher and student of pornography roll up their sleeves to begin work in this field', mitigating porn's image as mainstream culture's guilty secret" - Linda Ruth Williams, Sight & Sound

"This collection of very accessible and fascinating essays links pornography to the avant-garde and modern sex scandals, tracing its roots from early stag films and making a connection between war machinery and the pinup girls of WWII." - , Ms.

"For more than a decade now, Linda Williams has been taking porn seriously. Her latest—Porn Studies—does not disappoint. She succeeds, once again, in legitimizing porn as an essential topic for academic study and provides a guide for teaching about it. For all those who want to know more about the place of porn in American culture, this is refreshingly unabashed scholarship."
- Susie Bright, author of Mommy's Little Girl: On Sex, Motherhood, Porn, and Cherry Pie

"Thank God for Linda Williams! She is absolutely brilliant. I have learned an enormous amount from her over the years. She boldly goes where few academics dare. Porn Studies is a smart, much needed, fascinating book, which paves the way and sets the tone for future porn studies. This book boggles and blows my mind." - Annie Sprinkle, postmodern pornographer and sexologist