
Jane Caputi, Ph.D.
Professor Florida Atlantic University
- Boca Raton FL
Jane Caputi, Ph.D., is an expert in contemporary American cultural studies, including popular culture, gender and violence, and ecofeminism.
Social
Biography
Areas of Expertise
Accomplishments
SCAF (Scholarly and Creative Activities for Faculty) Award
2017
Florida Atlantic University
Research and Scholarly Activities
2005
Florida Atlantic University
Distinguished Teacher
2001
Florida Atlantic University
Education
Bowling Green State University
Ph.D.
1982
Simmons College
M.A.
1977
Boston College
B.A.
1974
Selected Media Appearances
What Feminist Scholar Jane Caputi Believes History Can Teach Us About Taking on Male Supremacy—and Building a Future Without Femicide
Ms. Magazine online
2025-08-27
The professor and The Age of Sex Crime author explained in the latest episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward why the backlash we’re facing is proof that we’re winning—and urged feminists not to abandon their utopic visions for a world without misogyny.
‘Wonder Woman’ vs. ‘The Godfather’
Ms. Magazine online
2024-10-31
Ahead of the presidential election, Donald Trump fans align him with The Godfather, and Kamala Harris supporters idealize her as Wonder Woman.
FAU’s “Political Circus” Explores Another Polarized Campaign Cycle
Boca Raton Magazine online
2024-10-16
Co-curated by Lisa Rockford of Rockford Projects and FAU professor Dr. Jane Caputi from her ongoing collection, and subdivided into categories addressing immigration, race, religion, cults of personality, voting, women’s rights and more, “Political Circus” revels in extremes. It’s like walking through an unfiltered comments section of a political site—subreddits expanded into three dimensions. I found some of the merchandise genuinely witty, particularly a riff on the similarities between Donald Trump and Jim Jones, and a pointed dig at Ron DeSantis’ footwear that flips the script on his anti-LGBTQ stances.
The Goddess and the Princess: Why Diana Endures
JSTOR Daily online
2022-08-29
Twenty-five years after her untimely death, the legacy of Diana, Princess of Wales—more commonly known as Princess Diana—endures. For gender and cultural studies scholar Jane Caputi, who considered Diana’s iconic status in the years immediately following her death, the former royal’s image draws its power and longevity from mythology, specifically the parallels between the narratives of Diana, the goddess, and the life of Diana Spencer, the woman. Princess Diana’s popularity and power was “based in infinite background layers of older tales that infuse the surface narrative with memory, color, nuance, soul, and meta-morphic power,” writes Caputi.
We look to our mothers to save us from injustice and distress | Opinion
Miami Herald online
2020-06-23
In times of greatest extremity, people cry out for their mothers. George Floyd, while being tortured and then killed by a white policeman, called out “Mama.” Hearing this, many instantly wept in recognition, as this calling to the mother touched on the universal experience of infant helplessness, need for care and the hope for succor and intervention.
Why Are We So Obsessed With Female Killers?
Refinery29 online
2019-08-22
“Violence is often seen as a heroic attribute of masculinity,” says Jane Caputi, professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies at Florida Atlantic University. “Whereas when a woman is violent, she is almost always seen as evil.” The femme fatale is a good example of this. For decades, powerful, lethal women were characterized as temptresses who exist to entice and then destroy the male protagonist, Dr. Caputi says. But it’s an outdated trope. In the 1970s, the female avenger character emerged. “This has been going on for decades,” she says, noting that these narratives tend to come in waves, following the tide of our national conversation.
Prof: Serial killer Ted Bundy another example of ‘white privilege’
The College Fix online
2019-05-04
Professor Jane Caputi, whose research speciality is contemporary American cultural studies (which includes “popular culture, gender and violence, and ecofeminism”) recently told Oxygen.com that Bundy “has been wrongly mythologized — largely due to his ‘white male privilege.’”
Want An Example Of White Privilege? Just Look At Ted Bundy
Oxygen Official Site online
2019-05-03
Jane Caputi, a professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies at the Florida Atlantic University thinks Bundy has been wrongly mythologized — largely due to his “white male privilege.”
“[Bundy] never got into the law school he wanted to,” Caputi told Oxygen.com. “He was a nose-picker, a nailbiter, not well liked as a child, he tortured frogs — his own opinion of himself preceded everything and the media did just buy that.”
Palm Beach County women reveal stories, shame of unwanted groping
The Palm Beach Post
2016-10-13
According to Jane Caputi, professor at the Center for Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Boca Raton’s Florida Atlantic University, “one in six American women has been the victim of rape or attempted rape.” [...]
Girl powder: A cultural history of love’s baby soft
The Awl
2013-03-05
On the topic of resistance, Baby Soft’s reliance on equating girliness with sexiness did, of course, prove fertile ground for women’s studies classes and scathing feminist media critiques. In her 2004 book Goddesses and Monsters, Jane Caputi dissected that little-girl ad from the 70s, writing:
The ad blatantly positions the young girl as a sex object and acknowledges that is her ‘innocence’ that makes her such a suitable erotic target. … It makes perfect pornographic sense. The ‘moralistic’ ethic puts chastity next to godliness and makes sex ‘dirty,’ defiling a supposed bodily and spiritual ‘purity.’ Sexual gratification of any kind then becomes all bound up not only with taboo violation, but also with defilement.
Selected Articles
We look to our mothers to save us from injustice and distress | Opinion
Miami HeraldJane Caputi
2020
In times of greatest extremity, people cry out for their mothers. George Floyd, while being tortured and then killed by a white policeman, called out “Mama.” Hearing this, many instantly wept in recognition, as this calling to the mother touched on the universal experience of infant helplessness, need for care and the hope for succor and intervention.
The Color Orange? Social Justice Issues in the First Season of Orange Is the New Black
The Journal of Popular CultureJane Caputi
2015
The Real “Hot Mess”: The Sexist Branding of Female Pop Stars
Sex RolesJane Caputi
2014
I regularly teach an interdisciplinary undergraduate class, “Introduction to Sexuality and Gender Studies” and it is not easy to find the right books to use. One needs not only a core, survey-type text, but also additional books that delve into specialty areas, simultaneously providing grounding in core definitions and theoretical concepts and putting them to a most interesting application. Gender, Branding and the Modern Music Industry is focused on female pop stars in the United States music industry. It is an ideal book for use in this class and I am sure it will be equally useful for others teaching courses with a U.S. focus in Communication and Multimedia, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Popular Culture Studies and some Sociology and Marketing classes.
Unthinkable Fathering: Connecting Incest and Nuclearism
Hypatia A Journal of Feminist PhilosophyJane Caputi
2009
The examination of cultural productions with nuclear themes reveals the regular recurrence of the theme of incestuous fatherhood. Connections include a nuclear-father figure, one who threatens dependents while purportedly protecting them; the desecration of the future; the betrayal of trust; insidious long-term effects after initial harm; the shattering of safety; the cult of secrecy, aided by psychological defenses of denial, numbing, and splitting (in both survivor and perpetrator); the violation of life-preservative taboos; and survival.