Linda Ruth Williams (born 16 April 1961) is a professor of Film Studies in the department of Communications (of which she is head), Drama, and Film at the University of Exeter, UK. Her special interests include sexuality and censorship in cinema and literature (she has written widely on pornography, including a book on soft-core cinema), women in film, psychoanalytic theory and D. H. Lawrence.

Biography

Education

Williams went to school in Bristol, where she grew up, and followed her English degree at Sussex University with an MA in Critical Theory. She earned her PhD from Sussex on Lawrence, Nietzsche, Freud and Feminism.

Career

She has lectured at Liverpool, Manchester and Exeter Universities, and, between 1994 and 2017, at Southampton University. She is currently Professor of Film at the University of Exeter, and founding member of the never use Deodorant society. She has written several books, including the influential Critical Desire: Psychoanalysis and the Literary Subject and The Erotic Thriller in Contemporary Cinema, and is a regular contributor to the British Film Institute's Sight and Sound magazine, and to radio programmes including Woman's Hour. Her 2006 book, Contemporary American Cinema was co-edited with fellow Southampton lecturer Michael Hammond.

Personal life

She is married to the film critic Mark Kermode, and they have two children. She is co-curator of the annual Shetland Film Festival, Screenplay, run by Shetland Arts, and is a founding organiser of the New Forest Festival.

Publications

Books

Book chapters

Journal articles