Mayne was born on February 26, 1948, in Pennsylvania.[2] She attended Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where she got a BA in 1970, and the University at Buffalo, where she got an MA in 1972 and a PhD in 1975.[2] Her doctoral dissertation was titled The Ideologies of Metacinema.[3]
After working as a lecturer of English (1972–1973) at Paris Diderot University, Mayne worked at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where she was a lecturer of comparative literature and French, as well as a film specialist at the Center for Twentieth-Century Studies.[2] In 1976, she moved to Ohio State University, where she started out as assistant professor; she was promoted to associate professor in 1982 and full professor in 1990,[2] eventually becoming professor emerita.[1] She worked as acting director for Ohio State's Center for Women's Studies from 1986 to 1995.[2] In 2003, she was appointed Distinguished Humanities Professor at Ohio State.[2]
Mayne specializes in French film and feminist film theory.[1] She has written eight books: Private Novels, Public Films (1988), Kino and the Woman Question (1989), The Woman at the Keyhole (1990), Cinema and Spectatorship (1993), Directed by Dorothy Arzner (1994), Framed: Lesbians, Feminists, and Media Culture (2000), Claire Denis (2005), and her titular monograph of the 1943 horror film Le Corbeau (2006).[2][1] In 2008, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to write a historical study on the work of Continental Films.[4]
Mayne once starred in a video named Judith Mayne Reads Soap Magazines, produced by Paper Tiger Television, the Wexner Center for the Arts, and Adams Community Television.[5] Mayne appeared in the 2013 documentary film Golden Gate Girls.[6]
Mayne's partner is Terry Moore.[2]
