Kathryn Claire Higgins
Biographic Data
| ID | 1253995 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kathryn Claire Higgins |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kathryn Claire |
| FAMILY NAME | Higgins |
| SIGNATURE | HIGGINS K C |
| AFFILIATIONS | London School of Economics and Political Science |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0234-8081 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 15 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
From victimhood to victim could
This article theorizes how far-right cultural politics leverage hypothetical injuries and imaginary futures, often through media, to justify agendas of social violence – a technique I term victim could . Victimcould is both a representational achievement (alive within the cultural repertoires of the far-right) and a justificatory logic (supporting the cultural legitimacy of far-right political agendas). Working with the concept of vulnerability p…
Man enough to kill, boy enough to cry
This short article considers the television show Adolescence , using the show’s title as an entry point for analysis and critique. Adolescence is the name we give to the liminal zone between childhood and adulthood. However, the concept of an “adolescence” is conspicuously gendered and racialized; it is a strategic attempt to extend the protections and moral absolutions of childhood that is overwhelmingly reserved for white, male youth. As such, …
Croyabilité
Liars, scammers and cheats
In this paper, we analyze the conjuncture framing the recent rise of media representations of female con artists, looking at two recent examples of the trope on television: Inventing Anna (a fictionalized account of con artist Anna Delvey) and The Dropout (a fictionalized account of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes). We situate the new visibility of women who lie, scam and cheat on television within a set of distinct yet interlocking cultural an…
A roundtable discussion of Kathryn Claire Higgins and Sarah Banet-Weiser’s Believability
This article is the athor's contribution to: A roundtable discussion of Kathryn Claire Higgins and Sarah Banet-Weiser’s Believability: Sexual Violence, Media and the Politics of Doubt, published early online by SAGE Publications, 25 March 2024 at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14647001241228856
Misogyny, Survivorship, and Believability on Digital Platforms
On 18th May 2022, in an opinion piece for The New York Times, columnist Michelle Goldberg declared “the death of #MeToo” (Goldberg, 2022). The papers in this panel examine this claim and wrestle with its potential implications. Drawing on case studies and data from the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, we evaluate the current state of play in the online push-and-pull between feminist speech about gender-based violence and…
‘Nobody feels safe’
The new prominence of ordinary voice in crime journalism – claims to have seen things, experienced things, felt things ‘first-hand’ – has the potential to decenter elite perspectives and open up crime news narratives to the voices of systemically criminalized subjects. However, I argue in this paper that the political potential of ordinary voice can only be realized in and through concrete instances of its use, and so needs to be examined within …
Rethinking visual criminalization
This article explores the mediated spacetime of crime events to reconsider how criminalization works through visual journalism. Drawing on close analysis of 45 images from Australian newspaper reports about so-called ‘African gang crime’ events in the city of Melbourne, it develops a typology of five distinct ‘ways of looking’ at crime that news images can open for their viewers. Each extends unique imaginative demands and so conditions perceptua…
Television and the “Honest” Woman
Between 2019 and 2020, three streaming series premiered on Netflix, Apple+, and BBC One/HBO: Unbelievable, The Morning Show , and I May Destroy You. All three narratively centered sexual violence against women, foregrounding the experiences of the women characters, and were produced within the context of the global movement #MeToo. We offer a conjunctural analysis of these programs within what we call the economy of believability, arguing that th…
Sensing the (in)visible
Based on a thematic analysis of 7,569 posts on the online parenting forum Mumsnet Talk, in this article we examine how domestic cleaning—one of the most invisible aspects of reproductive labour—and the people who perform it are made visible. We conceptualize Mumsnet discussions as a “visibility sensor:” a technological and affective space that captures, analyses and relays information and feelings in ways that contribute to visibilizing cleaning …
Sensing the (in)visible
Based on a thematic analysis of 7,569 posts on the online parenting forum Mumsnet Talk, in this article we examine how domestic cleaning—one of the most invisible aspects of reproductive labour—and the people who perform it are made visible. We conceptualize Mumsnet discussions as a “visibility sensor:” a technological and affective space that captures, analyses and relays information and feelings in ways that contribute to visibilizing cleaning …
Television and the “Honest” Woman
Between 2019 and 2020, three streaming series premiered on Netflix, Apple+, and BBC One/HBO: Unbelievable, The Morning Show , and I May Destroy You. All three narratively centered sexual violence against women, foregrounding the experiences of the women characters, and were produced within the context of the global movement #MeToo. We offer a conjunctural analysis of these programs within what we call the economy of believability, arguing that th…
From victimhood to victim could
This article theorizes how far-right cultural politics leverage hypothetical injuries and imaginary futures, often through media, to justify agendas of social violence – a technique I term victim could . Victimcould is both a representational achievement (alive within the cultural repertoires of the far-right) and a justificatory logic (supporting the cultural legitimacy of far-right political agendas). Working with the concept of vulnerability p…
Rethinking visual criminalization
This article explores the mediated spacetime of crime events to reconsider how criminalization works through visual journalism. Drawing on close analysis of 45 images from Australian newspaper reports about so-called ‘African gang crime’ events in the city of Melbourne, it develops a typology of five distinct ‘ways of looking’ at crime that news images can open for their viewers. Each extends unique imaginative demands and so conditions perceptua…
Television and the “Honest” Woman
Between 2019 and 2020, three streaming series premiered on Netflix, Apple+, and BBC One/HBO: Unbelievable, The Morning Show , and I May Destroy You. All three narratively centered sexual violence against women, foregrounding the experiences of the women characters, and were produced within the context of the global movement #MeToo. We offer a conjunctural analysis of these programs within what we call the economy of believability, arguing that th…
Sensing the (in)visible
Based on a thematic analysis of 7,569 posts on the online parenting forum Mumsnet Talk, in this article we examine how domestic cleaning—one of the most invisible aspects of reproductive labour—and the people who perform it are made visible. We conceptualize Mumsnet discussions as a “visibility sensor:” a technological and affective space that captures, analyses and relays information and feelings in ways that contribute to visibilizing cleaning …
‘Nobody feels safe’
The new prominence of ordinary voice in crime journalism – claims to have seen things, experienced things, felt things ‘first-hand’ – has the potential to decenter elite perspectives and open up crime news narratives to the voices of systemically criminalized subjects. However, I argue in this paper that the political potential of ordinary voice can only be realized in and through concrete instances of its use, and so needs to be examined within …
Rethinking visual criminalization
This article explores the mediated spacetime of crime events to reconsider how criminalization works through visual journalism. Drawing on close analysis of 45 images from Australian newspaper reports about so-called ‘African gang crime’ events in the city of Melbourne, it develops a typology of five distinct ‘ways of looking’ at crime that news images can open for their viewers. Each extends unique imaginative demands and so conditions perceptua…
Misogyny, Survivorship, and Believability on Digital Platforms
On 18th May 2022, in an opinion piece for The New York Times, columnist Michelle Goldberg declared “the death of #MeToo” (Goldberg, 2022). The papers in this panel examine this claim and wrestle with its potential implications. Drawing on case studies and data from the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, we evaluate the current state of play in the online push-and-pull between feminist speech about gender-based violence and…
A roundtable discussion of Kathryn Claire Higgins and Sarah Banet-Weiser’s Believability
This article is the athor's contribution to: A roundtable discussion of Kathryn Claire Higgins and Sarah Banet-Weiser’s Believability: Sexual Violence, Media and the Politics of Doubt, published early online by SAGE Publications, 25 March 2024 at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14647001241228856
From victimhood to victim could
This article theorizes how far-right cultural politics leverage hypothetical injuries and imaginary futures, often through media, to justify agendas of social violence – a technique I term victim could . Victimcould is both a representational achievement (alive within the cultural repertoires of the far-right) and a justificatory logic (supporting the cultural legitimacy of far-right political agendas). Working with the concept of vulnerability p…
Man enough to kill, boy enough to cry
This short article considers the television show Adolescence , using the show’s title as an entry point for analysis and critique. Adolescence is the name we give to the liminal zone between childhood and adulthood. However, the concept of an “adolescence” is conspicuously gendered and racialized; it is a strategic attempt to extend the protections and moral absolutions of childhood that is overwhelmingly reserved for white, male youth. As such, …
Croyabilité
Liars, scammers and cheats
In this paper, we analyze the conjuncture framing the recent rise of media representations of female con artists, looking at two recent examples of the trope on television: Inventing Anna (a fictionalized account of con artist Anna Delvey) and The Dropout (a fictionalized account of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes). We situate the new visibility of women who lie, scam and cheat on television within a set of distinct yet interlocking cultural an…
Sociology (9 works) · Criminology (6 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Psychology (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Gender Studies (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Media studies (4 works) · Aesthetics (3 works)