We mourn the loss of Linda Williams (1946-2025), who was a professor of film studies at UC Irvine from 1989 to 1997. She was a gracious and inspiring scholar who shaped our discipline in undeniable ways with her work on feminist theory, pornography, melodrama, and spectatorship. Her books include Hard Core (1989 and 1999), Viewing Positions (1994), Reinventing Film Studies (2000), Playing the Race Card (2001), Screening Sex (2008), and On the Wire (2014). Her landmark essays include “Something Else Besides a Mother,” “Film Bodies,” and “Melodrama Revised.
Film and Media Studies