Jane Caputi, Ph.D.
Professor | Florida Atlantic University
Boca Raton, FL, UNITED STATES
Jane Caputi, Ph.D., is an expert in contemporary American cultural studies, including popular culture, gender and violence, and ecofeminism.
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Biography
Jane Caputi is a professor of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at Florida Atlantic University. Her doctorate is in American Culture Studies. At FAU, Caputi has won the University Distinguished Teacher Award (2001) and was twice named University Researcher of the Year for Scholarly Activities, professor level (2005 and 2013). In 2016, the Popular Culture Association named her its “Eminent Scholar of the Year” and in 2020 the Association for the Study of Women in Mythology gave her its annual “Saga Award” for contributions to women’s history and culture. In 2013, Palm Beach County NOW (National Organization of Women gave her its annual Susan B. Anthony Feminist of the Year Award. Caputi has written four books: "The Age of Sex Crime" (1987); "Gossips, Gorgons and Crones: The Fates of the Earth" (1993); "Goddesses and Monsters: Women, Myth, Power and Popular Culture" (2004); and "Call Your “Mutha’” A Deliberately Dirty-Minded Manifesto for the Earth Mother in the Anthropocene" (2020). This last book is in a series on Heretical Thought and was published by Oxford University Press. Caputi also has made two educational documentaries: "The Pornography of Everyday Life" (2006), distributed by Berkeley Media; and "Feed the Green: Feminist Voices for the Earth" (2016), distributed by Women Make Movies. She also guest curated three exhibits on the presidential campaigns for the Schmidt Galleries at FAU: “Political Circus 2008;” “Political Sideshow 2016;" and “Political Pandemonium 2020.” These focused on popular artifacts (T-shirts, bumper stickers, buttons, etc.).
Areas of Expertise (5)
Feminism
Gender and Violence
Contemporary American Cultural Studies
Popular Culture
Ecofeminism
Accomplishments (3)
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 (3)
Bowling Green State University: Ph.D. 1982
Simmons College: M.A. 1977
Boston College: B.A. 1974
Links (2)
Selected Media Appearances (2)
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 (5)
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.
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