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- Title
The Rhetorical Space of the Garden in Shirin Neshat's Women Without Men.
- Authors
Palmer-Mehta, Valerie
- Abstract
The garden, in its varying representations across time and culture, has functioned as a polyvalent space of diverse symbolic meanings. To investigate the richness of garden spaces for feminist communication scholars, I offer a narrative analysis of Shirin Neshat's Women Without Men that focuses on the role of the garden as a cultural and historical setting with the potential to illuminate gender politics and explore feminist possibilities. In my reading of Neshat's film, I argue that that the Persian garden serves as a site of rebellion and functions as a feminist epistemic space: a productive, working site where new meanings are forged and emancipatory visions are produced. I also consider the degree to which the film depicts outside forces that can violate the boundaries of the garden, pointing to global configurations of power that may deepen gender oppressions negotiated by the Iranian women represented in the film—forces in which Western viewers may be implicated.
- Subjects
WOMEN Without Men (Film); NESHAT, Shirin, 1957-; GENDER inequality -- Social aspects
- Publication
Women's Studies in Communication, 2015, Vol 38, Issue 1, p78
- ISSN
0749-1409
- Publication type
Film Review
- DOI
10.1080/07491409.2014.989351