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This edited volume delves into the unexpected, intriguing depictions of monstrous mothers in different cultures, literatures, and the arts. This wide-ranging topic is explored through a variety of methodological approaches, spanning disciplines from sociology to film studies, and from comparative literature to cultural studies.
The scope of this collection is global, highlighting the presence of maternal monstrosity not only in Western cultures but also in a number of other cultural contexts worldwide. The book s international and interdisciplinary perspective makes it relevant to a broad and diverse readership focusing on literary criticism, as well as cultural and gender studies.
List of contents
Chapter 1. Introduction.- Section 1: Worldwide Roots of Monstrosity: Deviant Mothers in Myth and Lore.- Chapter 2. The Monstrous Mother: Resisting Decentred Subjectivity.- Chapter 3. From the Old Testament to Josephus: The Cannibalism of Mary of Bethezuba and the Implications of Her Monstrous Gesture.- Chapter 4. Monstrous Milk: Early Modern English Medical Theories of Women s Corrupting Lactation.- Chapter 5. Mythopoesis Redux: Disrupting the Insidious and Silent Conditioning of the Monstrous Mother.- Section 2: Representations of Deviant Motherhood.- Chapter 6. Piange la madre estinta . On Evil Mothers in Melodrama.- Chapter 7. Killjoy and Conflictive Virgins as Anti-Mothers In the Work of Julia Rossetti and Blas Aparecido.- Chapter 8. The Symbolic Order of (Monstrous) Mothers in Francesca Marciano s Casa Rossa.- Chapter 9. Motherhood, Monstrosity and Trauma in the Writings of Anzia Yezierska and Michael Gold.- Chapter 10. The Monstrous Mother in Now, Voyager, The Manchurian Candidate and Ordinary People.- Section 3: Horrific Mothers: Monsters and Beasts.- Chapter 11. Queer Mother, Hybrid Monster: Serpentine Hybridity and Monstrous Motherhood in d Arras and Spenser.- Chapter 12. From The Devouring Mother to the Devoured Mother. Images of the Crocodile-Mother in the Damas Oscuras Fiction (Mónica Ojeda, Ana Martínez Castillo, Solange Rodríguez Pappe, Alicia Sánchez Martínez).- Chapter 13. The Single Mother as a Folk Devil: Mothers in Japanese Horror Cinema 1998-2010.- Chapter 14. Motherhood in Contemporary Horror: Some Notes and a Possible Classification.- Chapter 15. Corporeal and Psychological Monstrosities of Mothers in the Marquis de Sade.- Chapter 16. Sexy Mothers not Wanted: An Ideological Analysis of U.S. Media Representations of Mothers in the Sex Industry.- Chapter 17. Your Mother s Sex Dungeon : Netflix s Sex Education s Jean Milburn as Feminist Witch.- Chapter 18. Over a Feminist Performer s Knee: Spanking Representation in Dana Vespoli s Porn.- Chapter 19. The Monstrous Mother Toolkit.
About the author
Anna Chiara Corradino is Research Fellow at the Scuola Normale Superiore - Pisa, Italy. Her research interests include the dynamics of dominant femininity and reified masculinity, film, gender and cultural studies, and the transformation of ancient myths in contemporary literature and culture. She has published a monograph on the myth of Endymion and Selene (Bloomsbury, 2025) and essays on topics ranging from the classical tradition to representations of female necrophilia. She is currently writing a book on neon aesthetics in cinema.
Alessandro Grilli is Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at the University of Pisa, Italy. He has written extensively on ancient drama and the classical tradition. His research interests include literary theory, applied rhetoric, film and gender studies. He has published monographs and essays on ancient and modern authors (from Aristophanes to Proust, from Catullus to Walter Siti), as well as on argumentation theory and film analysis. He is currently working on a book on the aesthetics of horror.
