The Nymph Shoots Back: Agamben, Nymphomaniac, and the Feel of the Agon

This essay pairs Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac (2013) with Giorgio Agamben’s Nymphs (2013) to offer a feminist perspective on sexual image-making in a post-cinematic digital age. Staging cinematic creation within a sexually differentiated, agonistic frame, Nymphomaniac’s “passionate ambivalence” (Honig) recalls a Pygmalion tradition whose Enlightenment avatars engage in creative acts that threaten to transform masculine artistry into nymphomania. Critiquing Agamben’s nymph copulatio as men’s rationalist projections onto female screens, the essay speculates on what political agonisms might reemerge, post-cinematically, after the nymph shoots back at her creator.