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In Cinemas of Bisexual Transgression, Jacob Engelberg makes the case for radically recalibrating queer film studies, taking as a starting point those cinematic figures who resist categorization within the gay-straight binary. Engelberg’s engagement with bisexual transgression on film illuminates the mutability and instability of sexuality, and of sociocultural structures more broadly by resisting the censure of images as politically harmful as well as the celebration of transgression as inherently subversive. Instead, Engelberg understands bisexual transgression as a process whereby sociocultural rules are made knowable by being contested. From 1970s vampire films to 1990s erotic thrillers, from lesbian imaginings of female bisexuality to European art cinema’s reckonings with HIV/AIDS, bisexual figures on film embody anxieties around the precarity of binary sexuality while revealing the contingencies of sexuality’s cinematic signification. Revivifying the underexploited contributions of bisexual theory, Cinemas of Bisexual Transgression proposes a new mode of film theorization and analysis that examines the rich space between and beyond dominant categories of sexual organization, where sexual unpredictability, the allure of the forbidden, and the precarity of sexual signification are illuminated.
Price: $29.95
Pages: 350
Publisher: Duke University Press
Imprint: Duke University Press
Publication Date:
06 January 2026
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9781478032984
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
“Jacob Engelberg addresses an under-researched area in queer cinema studies with an impressive theoretical sophistication. His keen knowledge of film history and generous interventions in queer theory, film theory, and the bisexual film canon make this book the most comprehensive, considered, and thoughtful analysis of bisexuality in visual culture I have encountered. I’m frankly delighted by it.”—Maria Pramaggiore, co-editor of, Film: A Critical Introduction, 4th edition
“Cinemas of Bisexual Transgression revitalizes bisexuality screen scholarship by bringing critically deft, contextually rich, politically attuned evidence of its enduring indispensability and expanding urgency for queer media studies. Through incisive, elegant analysis of bisexual transgressors from ‘les(bi)an vampires’ to those of Basic Instinct and beyond, Engelberg deepens our understandings of bisexuality’s disruptive power and imaginative potential, while simultaneously staking out innovative theoretical-philosophical pathways and invaluable alliances with feminist, trans, and critical race studies.”—Maria San Filippo, author of, The B Word: Bisexuality in Contemporary Film and Television
"Taken together, both Trans Cinema and Cinemas of Bisexual Transgression remake the field of queer and trans film studies. Each book not only expands the central objects of study; they also call upon LGBTQ+ media scholars to shift our focus to forms of queerness underrepresented in our scholarship. Looking more closely at trans-made media and bisexuality on screen allows us to challenge the dominance of cisgender, monosexual ways of seeing the world around us and invites us to imagine it otherwise."—Lauren Herold, Autostraddle
“Cinemas of Bisexual Transgression revitalizes bisexuality screen scholarship by bringing critically deft, contextually rich, politically attuned evidence of its enduring indispensability and expanding urgency for queer media studies. Through incisive, elegant analysis of bisexual transgressors from ‘les(bi)an vampires’ to those of Basic Instinct and beyond, Engelberg deepens our understandings of bisexuality’s disruptive power and imaginative potential, while simultaneously staking out innovative theoretical-philosophical pathways and invaluable alliances with feminist, trans, and critical race studies.”—Maria San Filippo, author of, The B Word: Bisexuality in Contemporary Film and Television
"Taken together, both Trans Cinema and Cinemas of Bisexual Transgression remake the field of queer and trans film studies. Each book not only expands the central objects of study; they also call upon LGBTQ+ media scholars to shift our focus to forms of queerness underrepresented in our scholarship. Looking more closely at trans-made media and bisexuality on screen allows us to challenge the dominance of cisgender, monosexual ways of seeing the world around us and invites us to imagine it otherwise."—Lauren Herold, Autostraddle
Jacob Engelberg is Assistant Professor of Film, Media, and Culture at the University of Amsterdam.
Preface: This Capacity xi
Introduction: Bisexuality, Transgression, Cinema 1
1. The Les(bi)ian Vampire’s Carnal Stakes: Vampyres (1974) 41
2. Treachery in Lesbian Cinema: She Must Be Seeing Things (1987) 81
3. Ambiguity, Masculinity, AIDS: Savage Nights (1992) 127
4. The Erotic Thriller’s Alluring Confoundments: Basic Instinct (1992) 179
Afterword 229
Acknowledgments 237
Notes 241
Filmography 277
Bibliography 285
Index 317
Introduction: Bisexuality, Transgression, Cinema 1
1. The Les(bi)ian Vampire’s Carnal Stakes: Vampyres (1974) 41
2. Treachery in Lesbian Cinema: She Must Be Seeing Things (1987) 81
3. Ambiguity, Masculinity, AIDS: Savage Nights (1992) 127
4. The Erotic Thriller’s Alluring Confoundments: Basic Instinct (1992) 179
Afterword 229
Acknowledgments 237
Notes 241
Filmography 277
Bibliography 285
Index 317