Female Negotiations of Affect in Domestic and Public Space in the Television Series The Handmaid’s Tale

Authors

  • Nadia Der-Ohannesian Universidad Nacional de Córdoba: Facultad de Lenguas, Centro de investigaciones de la Facultad de Lenguas y Centro de Investigaciones de la Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1254-565X

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-8026.2021.e75830

Abstract

The screen adaptation of the 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, converges with the current global turn to the right. Across different geographies and variables, there have been attempts at reinforcing the control of women’s reproductive capacity, crucial to the reproduction of capitalism, and resistance by networks of feminist movements. Such tensions bear resemblance with the concerns represented in the television show. Within the affective turn, in the present study, I examine the gaze as a gendered bodily practice of control over women as well as a practice of resistance under the guise of affect, friendship and desire, in private and public space.

Author Biography

Nadia Der-Ohannesian, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba: Facultad de Lenguas, Centro de investigaciones de la Facultad de Lenguas y Centro de Investigaciones de la Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades

Nadia Der-Ohannesian holds a PhD in Language Science, Comparative Cultures and Literatures, for
Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina (2014). Her doctoral degree was funded by a scholarship
granted by the National Scientific and Technical Research Council, Argentina (CONICET). She is currently a full-time Assistant Professor Facultad de Lenguas, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, in “An introduction to Literature in English”. She teaches post-graduade courses on themes related to contemporary literature. Her current research project, of which she is a co-director, is entitled “Gender, Bodies and Affect. Subjectivity Processes in Literature and Other Arts” and is funded by Secretaría de Ciencia y Técnica, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (SeCyT, UNC). At present, her research interests include Gender Studies and literary and audiovisual feminist science fiction, and their relationship to space.

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Published

2021-01-28

Issue

Section

Contemporary audiovisual narratives