What is the nature of desire? This book gives an accessible introduction to the concept, and a coherent critique of the competing theories of desire within contemporary theory. Through analysis of representations of desire in television and film, it considers ways in which the concept?is theorized and presented on screen.List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction Theorising Desire Hysterical Desire Gaze and Melodrama Shame and Desire Desire and Melancholia Conclusion: Desire and Embodiment Bibliography Notes IndexKRISTYN GORTON?is Lecturer in the Department of Theatre, Film& Television at York University, UK. She is the author of Psychoanalysis and the Portrayal of Desire in Twentieth-Century Fiction: A Feminist Critique (2007) and has published articles in Studies in European Cinema, Feminist Theory?and The Journal of British Cinema and Television.