Women as Angel, Women as Evil: Interrogating the Boundaries

From witches and sociopaths to shrewd business women and sexually unruly females, societal notions of women and femininity have been informed by a tendency to define socially deviant or unacceptable behaviour as evil. The authors included in this volume explore the relationship between women and evil by exposing the ways in which the concept of femininity serves as a basis for policing the conduct of women who pose a threat to social norms and patriarchal privilege. This volume offers an insightful cross-disciplinary analysis which seeks to redeem or at least shed new light on women who misbehave.

CONTENTS

Introduction: Andrea Ruthven and Gabriela Mádlo  vii

PART I: MONSTROUS MOTHERS
Caesarean Kidnapping: Motherhood at Any Cost, Theresa Porter  3

Unnatural Mothers, Mothering Unnaturally: Technologies of Reproduction and The Politics of Maternity in Hiromi Goto's 'Hopeful Monsters', Andrea Ruthven  23

PART II: THE FEMININE AND THE SUPERNATURAL

The Werewolf and Modern Woman: The Metaphor of the Female Werewolf as Modern Day Woman in The Wolf's Bride by Aino Kallas, Cynthia Jones  39

Feminist Vampires and the Romantic Satanist Tradition of Counter-Readings, Per Faxneld  55

PART III: CLASS RELATIONS
'Hornbags' and 'Foxy Morons' of the World Unite: Transgressive Comedy in Kath & Kim, Ann-Marie Cook  79

Aileen Wuornos: Sympathy for the Devil, Christine Rogers  103

Lampooning 'The Queen of Mean': Representations of Leona Helmsley in Popular Culture, Tadeusz Lewandowski  117

PART IV: 'DEVIANT' SEXUALITY
It Was Lilith He Longed For: Romanticism and the Legacies of Lolita, Brian D. Walter  141

Neo-Victorian Sapphic Femmes Fatales: Manipulation and Double Game in Sarah Waters' Affinity, Malwina Degorska  155

Sculpting Wanton Vessels: Physiognomy, Medical Theory and the Construction of the Evil Feminine in the Later Middle Ages, Brenda S. Gardenour  173