Year's Work in Showgirls Studies

Melissa Hardie is Associate Professor of English at the University of Sydney. Her recent work appears in Australian Humanities Review, Textual Practice, Film Quarterly, and Angelaki and her most recent book chapter (with Amy Villarejo) appears in Television Studies in Queer Times.Meaghan Morris is Professor of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney. She is author of The Pirate's Fiancée: Feminism, Reading, Postmodernism; of Too Soon Too Late: History in Popular Culture; and of Identity Anecdotes: Translation and Media Culture.Kane Race is Professor of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney. He is author of Pleasure Consuming Medicine: The Queer Politics of Drugs; of The Gay Science: Intimate Experiments with the Problem of HIV; and (with Gay Hawkins and Emily Potter) of Plastic Water: The Social and Material Life of Bottled Water.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction, by Melissa Hardie, Meaghan Morris, and Kane RacePart I: Essays1. Getting It Just Right: Elizabeth Berkley's Ways of Knowing in Showgirls, by Anna Breckon2. Self-Shattering in Showgirls and Black Swan, by Kane Race3. "Ain't anyone ever been nice to you?": Discharging the Guilty Pleasure of Showgirls, by Kieryn McKay4. Badness, by Adrian Martin5. Showgirls, Showgirls 2, and the Fate of the Erotic Thriller, by Billy Stevenson6. Fifty Shades of Showgirls: Better Living through Mediation, by Melissa Hardie7. The Instability of Evil: Double Trouble and the Working Girl, by Meaghan MorrisPart II: Conversations8. The Accidental Showgirl: Reminiscing with Performer and Pioneer Feminist, Lynne Hutton-Williams, by Jane Chi Hyun Park and Shawna Tang9. "Fuck you! Pay me": Stripper Art and Storytelling Speaking Back from the Stage, by Zahra Stardust10. On Cliché, Camp, and Queer Temporality: Discussing Showgirls, by Kara Keeling and Meaghan MorrisPart III: Archive11. Loose Slots: Figuring the Strip in Showgirls, by Melissa Hardie12. Round Table: Showgirls, Film Quarterly 56, no. 3 (Spring 2003): 32–46Index

"This book does nothing less than stage a major reconsideration of one of cinema's most cherished and contested works. Collectively, these articles offer the reader an invigorating account of the complex intermedial and historiographic relations that can be generated by one movie over time. Whether rethinking what constitutes powerful acting, opening up new trajectories in the study of sex work on film and beyond, or activating a treasure trove of archival material, The Year's Work in Showgirl Studies is an indispensable book for scholars of cinema, performance, and culture."—Ryan Powell, author of Coming Together: The Cinematic Elaboration of Gay Male Life, 1945-1979"Smart, intricate and delightful, this collection does full justice to the complexities of camp through explorations of Showgirls, the most canonized of bad films. A true treat."—Susanna Paasonen,author of Carnal Resonance: Affect and Online Pornography