The first significant collection of essays about Maya Deren (1917-60), probably the leading figure in the post World War II American avant garde; in fact, this is one of the first serious considerations of any kind of Deren's career.

List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Introduction, Bill Nichols A. Deren's Work and the Arts B. Deren's Writings and Film Theory C. Deren's Films and Their Form 1. The Historical Lens Poetics and Savage Thought: About Anagram, Annette Michelson The Modernist Poetics of Maya Deren, Renata Jackson Aesthetic Agencies in Flux: Talley Beatty, Maya Deren, and the Modern Dance Tradition in Study in Choreography for Camera, Mark Franko "The Eye for Magic" Maya and Melies, Lucy Fischer 2. In the Eyes of Her Contemporaries The Ethics of Form: Structure and Gender in Maya Deren's Challenge to the Cinema, Maureen Turim Moving the Dancers' Souls, Ute Holl Maya Deren's Ethnographic Representation of Ritual and Myth in Haiti, Moira Sullivan 3. The Terms of Her Legend and Legacy Maya Deren Herself, Catherine M. Soussloff Maya Deren, Jane Brakhage Wodening Seeing Double(s): Reading Deren Bisexually, Maria Pramaggiore Maya Deren and Me, Barbara Hammer Appendix: An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form and Film Maya Deren List of Contributors Index