Contemporary Rewritings of Liminal Women: Echoes of the Past (Among the Victorians and Modernists)

This book explores the concept of liminality in the representation of women in eighteenth and nineteenth century literature, as well as in contemporary rewritings, such as novels, films, television shows, videogames, and graphic novels. In particular, the volume focuses on vampires, prostitutes, quixotes, and detectives as examples of new women who inhabit the margins of society and populate its narratives. Therefore, it places together for the first time four important liminal identities, while it explores a relevant corpus that comprises four centuries and several countries. Its diachronic, transnational, and comparative approach emphasizes the representation across time and space of female sexuality, gender violence, and women’s rights, also employing a liminal stance in its literary analysis: facing the past in order to understand the present. By underlining the dialogue between past and present this monograph contributes to contemporary debates on the representation of women and the construction of femininity as opposed to hegemonic masculinity, for it exposes the line of thought that has brought us to the present moment, hence, challenging assumed stereotypes and narratives. In addition, by using popular narratives and media, the present work highlights the value of literature, films, or alternative forms of storytelling to understand how women’s place in society, their voice, and their presence have been and are still negotiated in spaces of visibility, agency, and power. Half Title 2 Series Page 3 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Dedication 6 Table of Contents 7 Acknowledgments 9 1 Introduction: Liminality, Feminocentric Narratives, and the Polytemporality of the New Woman 10 Liminality and Feminocentric Narratives 12 Polytemporal (Feminist) History and the Trace 17 Liminal Women and Popular Narratives 19 2 Female Vampires: On the Threshold of Time, Space, and Gender 25 F(r)iends on the Threshold: Let the Right One In 31 M/Others and Survivors through Time: A Vampire Story and Byzantium 34 Eternity, Liminal Space, and the Outsider: Only Lovers Left Alive 38 Empowering Liminal Women: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night 41 3 Good and Bad, Private and Public: Prostitution as Liminal Identity 48 Between Monsters and Machines: Frankenhooker 58 The Freedom of the Prostitute or the Silence of the Wife: Dangerous Beauty 60 Neo-Victorian Rewritings: Class, Gender, and Commodities in Slammerkin 62 Sex and Power from the Eighteenth Century to Television: Harlots 65 4 Between Madness and Rebellion: Rewriting the Female Quixote 71 Coloring Reality with Romance: from Bridget Jones’s Diary to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend 81 Escaping a Harrowing (Patriarchal) Reality: Pan’s Labyrinth and Sucker Punch 85 Idealistic Individuals in a Fallen World: Amélie and The Bookshop 89 5 To Be and Not to Be: Female Detectives between Old and New Women 94 Resurrecting Kate Warne: The Pinkertons and My Favorite Thing Is Monsters 105 Sherlock’s Sisters at the Turn of the Century: Houdini & Doyle and Phryne Fisher 107 Invisible Women: Reclaiming the Spy in The Bletchley Circle 110 Past in the Present, the Gothic in the Noir: Dolores Redondo’s Baztan Trilogy 112 Afterword 118 Index 120 "This book explores the concept of liminality in the representation of women in 18th and 19th-century literature, as well as in contemporary rewritings, such as novels, films, television shows, videogames and graphic novels. In particular, the volume focuses on vampires, prostitutes, quixotes, and detectives as examples of new women who inhabit the margins of society and populate its narratives. Therefore, it places together for the first time four important liminal identities, while it explores a relevant corpus that comprises four centuries and several countries. Its diachronic, transnational and comparative approach emphasizes the representation across time and space of female sexuality, gender violence, and women's rights, also employing a liminal stance in its literary analysis: facing the past in order to understand the present. By underlining the dialogue between past and present this monograph contributes to contemporary debates on the representation of women and the construction of femininity as opposed to hegemonic masculinity, for it exposes the line of thought that has brought us to the present moment, hence, challenging assumed stereotypes and narratives. In addition, by using popular narratives and media, the present work highlights the value of literature, films or alternative forms of storytelling to understand how women's place in society, their voice, and their presence have been and are still negotiated in spaces of visibility, agency and power"-- Provided by publisher "This book explores the concept of liminality in the representation of women in 18th and 19th-century literature, as well as in contemporary rewritings, such as novels, films, television shows, videogames and graphic novels. In particular, the volume focuses on vampires, prostitutes, quixotes, and detectives as examples of new women who inhabit the margins of society and populate its narratives. Therefore, it places together for the first time four important liminal identities, while it explores a relevant corpus that comprises four centuries and several countries. Its diachronic, transnational and comparative approach emphasizes the representation across time and space of female sexuality, gender violence, and women's rights, also employing a liminal stance in its literary analysis: facing the past in order to understand the present. By underlining the dialogue between past and present this monograph contributes to contemporary debates on the representation of women and the construction of femininity as opposed to hegemonic masculinity, for it exposes the line of thought that has brought us to the present moment, hence, challenging assumed stereotypes and narratives. In addition, by using popular narratives and media, the present work highlights the value of literature, films or alternative forms of storytelling to understand how women's place in society, their voice, and their presence have been and are still negotiated in spaces of visibility, agency and power"-- Prové de l'editor