Beyond the Public Sphere

In Beyond the Public Sphere: Film and the Feminist Imaginary, the renowned philosopher and critical theorist Mar a P a Lara challenges the notion that the bourgeois public sphere is the most important informal institution between social and political actors and the state.

Drawing on a wide range of films--including The Milk of Sorrow, Ixcanul, Wadja, The Stone of Patience, Marnie, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Talk to Her--Lara dissects cinematic images of women's struggles and their oppression. She builds on this analysis, developing a concept of the feminist social imaginary as a broader and more complex space that provides a way of thinking through the possibilities for emancipatory social transformation in response to forms of domination perpetuated by patriarchal capitalism.