Caroline Walters

Caroline Walters is a Ph.D. student receiving AHRC funding in the department of Sexuality and Gender Studies at the University of Exeter. Her thesis will redress a gender imbalance in the critical literature by providing a discursive history of female masochism that examines key theoretical shifts in tandem with a few carefully selected cultural representations. The principal research questions are: What are the links between masochism and gender stereotypes? How has the rise of feminism and ideas of female agency affected the definition, understanding and interpretation of female masochism?

More broadly Caroline’s research examines the intersection between literary, filmic, theoretical and scientific texts as they formulate discourses of sexuality, particularly in its ‘non-normative’ forms. In 2008, she completed an MA in Gender, Sexuality, Politics and Culture at Birkbeck College, University of London. Her dissertation was titled ‘Shattering the Boundaries: Representing the Female Body in Extreme Corporeal French Cinema.’