This book is committed to women as writers and storytellers; all the selected novels are female-centric in that the main characters are women. The authors, also women, are from three diverse American ethnic groups from both the North and South. Through a close reading of several novels, Babakhani shows how the reinvention of cultural traditions serves these women writers as a political, decolonial, and feminist tool. Babakhani situates her readings in a critique of the concepts of realism and magical realism. Because magical realism sets realism against magic and implies binary oppositions, Babakhani proposes "cultural realism" as a revisionary concept that takes the cultural importance of rituals and beliefs seriously, without simply dismissing them as superstition.

"Just like Prisoner and Wentworth, this book is an instant cult classic. Written with love by a collective of expert aca-fans, TV Transformations & Transgressive Women takes us on a fascinating journey through the cultural legacies of Australia's favourite prison TV dramas. Contributors use a rich palette of methods, from genre analysis to production research, to unpack the significance of these shows. An exemplary textual study, this richly multi-perspectival collection is essential reading for anyone interested in television genres." (Ramon Lobato, Associate Professor, RMIT University) "This collection is a wonderful example of how certain TV shows can have tremendous impact, not only in the time of their making, but for several decades, when suddenly there's the opportunity to travel even further in an on-demand age and meet new audiences, academics and analytical approaches. The chapters offer a wide range of interesting interpretations and discussions, not the least on the way women have been represented on screen then and now. A good read for academics, fans and aca-fans." (Eva Novrup Redvall, Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen) A deep dive into iconic 1980s Australian women-in-prison TV drama Prisoner (aka Cell Block H), its contemporary reimagining as Wentworth, and its broader, global industry significance and influence, this book brings together a range of scholarly and industry perspectives, including an interview with actor Shareena Clanton (Wentworth's Doreen Anderson). Its chapters draw on talks with producers, screenwriters and casting; fan voices from the Wentworth twitterverse; comparisons with Netflix's Orange is the New Black; queer and LGBTQ approaches; and international production histories and contexts. By charting a path from Prisoner to Wentworth, the book offers a new mapping of TV shifts and transformations through the lens of female transgression, ruminating on the history, currency, industry position and cultural value of women-in-prison series.

Women and Democracy in Cold War Japan offers a fresh perspective on gender politics by focusing on the Japanese housewife of the 1950s as a controversial representation of democracy, leisure, and domesticity. Examining the shifting personae of the housewife, especially in the appealing texts of women's magazines, reveals the diverse possibilities of postwar democracy as they were embedded in media directed toward Japanese women. Each chapter explores the contours of a single controversy, including debate over the royal wedding in 1959, the victory of Japan's first Miss Universe, and the unruly desires of postwar women. Jan Bardsley also takes a comparative look at the ways in which the Japanese housewife is measured against equally stereotyped notions of the modern housewife in the United States, asking how both function as narratives of Japan-U.S. relations and gender/class containment during the early Cold War.

Over the past 30 years, musicologists have produced a remarkable new body of research literature focusing on the lives and careers of women composers in their socio-historical contexts. But detailed analysis and discussion of the works created by these composers are still extremely rare. This is particularly true in the domain of music theory, where scholarly work continues to focus almost exclusively on male composers. Moreover, while the number of performances, broadcasts, and recordings of women's compositions has unquestionably grown, they remain significantly underrepresented in comparison to music by male composers. Addressing these deficits is not simply a matter of rectifying a scholarly gender imbalance: the lack of knowledge surrounding the music of women composers means that scholars, performers, and the general public remain unfamiliar with a large body of exciting repertoire. Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Concert Music from 1960-2000 is the first to appear in an exciting a four volume series devoted to the work of women composers across Western art music history. Each chapter, many by leading music theorists, opens with a brief biographical sketch of the composer before presenting an in-depth critical-analytic exploration of a single representative composition, linking analytical observations with questions of meaning and sociohistorical context. Chapters are grouped thematically by analytical approach into three sections, each of which places the analytical methods used in the essays that follow into the context of late twentieth-century ideas and trends. Featuring rich analyses and detailed study by the most reputed music theorists in the field, along with brief biographical sketches for each composer, this collection brings to the fore the essential repertoire of a range of important composers, many of whom otherwise stand outside the standard canon.

We are all still here, so our garden of memories will continue to grow. While we have lived very different lives for the past six or seven decades and seldom have the occasion to visit, we need only be together for a minute to know we are sisters who still love one another and we are still Mary's girls.

George R.R. Martin's acclaimed seven-book fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire is unique for its strong and multi-faceted female protagonists, from teen queen Daenerys, scheming Queen Cersei, child avenger Arya, knight Brienne, Red Witch Melisandre, and many more. The Game of Thrones universe challenges, exploits, yet also changes how we think of women and gender, not only in fantasy, but in Western culture in general. Divided into three sections addressing questions of adaptation from novel to television, female characters, and politics and female audience engagement within the GoT universe, the interdisciplinary and international lineup of contributors analyze gender in relation to female characters and topics such as genre, sex, violence, adaptation, as well as fan reviews. The genre of fantasy was once considered a primarily male territory with male heroes. Women of Ice and Fire shows how the GoT universe challenges, exploits, and reimagines gender and why it holds strong appeal to female readers, audiences, and online participants.

Questioning hegemonic masculinity in literature is not novel. In the nineteenth century, under the July Monarchy (1830 1848), several French writers depicted characters who did not conform to gender expectations: hermaphrodites, castrati, homosexuals, effete men and mannish women. This book investigates the historical conditions in which these protagonists were created and their success during the July Monarchy. It analyses novels and novellas by Balzac, Gautier, Latouche, Musset and Sand in order to determine how these literary narratives challenged the traditional representations of masculinity and even redefined genders through their unconventional characters. This book also examines the connections and the disparities between these literary texts and contemporary scientific texts on sexual difference, homosexuality and intersexuality. It thus highlights the July Monarchy as a key period for the redefinition of gender identities.