[Commlist] MAI issue 7: Female Detectives on TV

New MAI issue 7
on the female detective on TV alongside other miscellaneous articles, 
reviews and interviews related to MAI's themes and interests.

This was co-edited with Jessica Ford and Tanya Horeck.

https://maifeminism.com/issues/mai-issue-7-female-detectives/

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2021 continues to challenge us. Whilst the vaccine rollout has afforded 
some of us the ability to return to a semblance of our old lives, the 
dreadful impact of the Covid-19 pandemic continues worldwide. Daily we 
are reminded of the inequities (and indifference) of our political 
landscape, the sheer precarity of human life, and the scarcity of 
essential resources for so many people around the globe. This pandemic 
has provided a salient reminder that nothing can be taken for granted: 
neither human life nor animal life, and most certainly not the life of 
this planet that sustains us.

Last year, in the autumn issue, we turned directly towards current 
events; we made space for the coping mechanisms so many have invoked to 
‘tread water’ in the face of a future that remains in complete disarray. 
With this publication, we turn towards another outlet that has become a 
source of comfort and escapism during long periods of lockdown and 
isolation: television drama. And here, we once again celebrate the 
ongoing and unwavering sense of the global feminist community—a unique 
spirit of support for women everywhere. Our authors, peer reviewers and 
editors always hope to contribute to this, even in the most challenging 
of times. As this issue reveals, a similar set of feminist values often 
underpins contemporary TV narratives that feature female investigators. 
Perhaps this is why many of us have been almost religiously watching 
crime dramas with women detectives of diverse backgrounds since the 
start of the pandemic in 2020. Their actions on the small screen 
fascinate us, and often serve as a remedy for our forced inaction in 
real life, probably now more than ever before.

That said, this issue has been years in the making. We thank Laura 
Nicholson for her invaluable input on this project during its inception, 
and her passion for the topic. Crime drama that centres on the female 
detective offers one of the few spaces within global popular culture to 
address some of the cardinal conjectures and concerns of feminism: 
agency, autonomy, professional and personal identities, sexualised male 
violence, misogyny, race, gendered politics, and ageing (to take but a 
few of the themes discussed in this issue). Tanya Horeck and Jessica 
Ford have been instrumental in bringing this collection together, which 
is richly political and equally critical in examining these most popular 
diegetic characters. We thank them both hugely for their generosity, 
their insight, and their hard work and commitment to seeing this issue 
through to fruition. Alongside these essays, you will also find a range 
of miscellaneous pieces for which we are very proud to provide a 
platform. Finally, we thank, once again, Houman Sadri for his assiduous 
devotion to copyediting the majority of pieces in this issue. His labour 
is so precious and treasured by all of us here at MAI. It continues to 
afford us the ability to remain entirely independent of the vagaries 
(and considerable costs) of academic publishing at large.


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