The Personal Cinema of Maya Deren: Meshes of the Afternoon and Its Critical Reception in the History of the Avant-Garde

Maya Deren's role within the history of the avant-garde is irreducibly tied to the reception of her groundbreaking film, Meshes of the Afternoon. In its avant-garde aesthetics, Meshes challenges the psychic structures of gendered subjectivity. By examining how the film's critique reflected Deren's position as a woman filmmaker, Meshes emerges as a significant work of feminist cinematic autobiography.