Authentic Voices. Important Topics.

Dr. Elizabeth K. Mix
Author & Professor of Art History

Elizabeth K. Mix (formerly Menon) uses popular sources from the 19th century to make the critical link between the creation of the 'femme fatale' and feminism. Depicted as a dangerous, depraved, and deadly woman, the femme fatale came as a response to increasing feminism and the desire by men to halt its spread. Illustrations from magazines, advertisements, and posters depict women with serpents, evil flowers, and even miniature men having their hearts cooked. The propaganda war waged in the pages of popular culture lives on today, as we see modern women co-opting this same imagery, replete with ambiguities and double-entendres, for their own ends.

Elizabeth K. Mix is an assistant professor of Art History at Butler University's Department of Media Arts.

About the Lecture:

"Professor Mix examines issues seldom faced before including how popular imagery deeply affected the creation of taste and the marketing of ideas. As a provocative writer Professor Mix is no less challenging and creative as a public lecturer. She knows her material well, has a way of engaging with her audience, and often does so with a sense of humour that makes people want to stay on to hear more. Her book, and the way she located much rich new material for it, will also reveal how research can be linked with a detective story -- one which will further engage the imagination of an audience. She will be a mesmerizing lecturer."

Gabriel P. Weisberg
Professor of Art History
University of Minnesota

"Elizabeth Mix is engaging and witty, her material fascinating and substantive. Her documents and images, drawn from 19th-century popular culture, are captivating; her audiences will come away with a new recognition of the hidden agendas and social imperatives regarding women and power that are embedded in our own 21st-century media culture."

Laurinda Dixon
Professor of Fine Arts
Syracuse University

"Elizabeth Mix is a dynamic speaker with a great sense of humor. She is engaging and uniquely able to relate Art History to both the specialized and general audience. She covers important territory in her book 'Evil by Design' and uses images over jargon to make her arguments. She's both intelligent and droll. She's an innovator, someone who sees unexpected connections and memorable visual parallels. Her lectures are not to be missed."

Gautam Rao
Assistant Professor, Media Arts
Butler University

About the Book:

"Evil by Design goes where few books have gone before: into the archives that house images of evil women in dozens of popular illustrated journals of the late nineteenth century in France....The 'designs' of these women, fabricated by men, include an urge to turn men into miniature and terribly inadequate mannequins, to suffocate them with living boas, and to poison them with the ever-handy flowers of evil available in the hothouses of the belle epoque."

Marie Lathers
Treuhaft Professor of Humanities and French
Case Western Reserve University

"Probing, witty, and scholarly analysis makes the arguments in Evil by Design both valid and persuasive. Menon explores the psychology behind the production of 'femme fatale' images while also illustrating how men ignored the feared real women. Not only is this book stimulating and enjoyable, I know of no other book that so calm and conclusively builds its case."

Linda Gertner Zatlin
Professor of English
Morehouse College.

To book this speaker, call 206-529-4711 or email info@samaralectures.com