This book, written from a feminist perspective, uses the focus of duelling to discuss the nature of masculinity in Russia. It traces the development of duelling and masculinity historically from the time of Peter the Great onwards, considers how duelling and masculinity have been represented in both literature and film and assesses the high emphasis given in Soviet times to gender equality, arguing that this was a failed experiment that ran counter to Russian tradition. It examines how duelling continues to be a feature of life in contemporary Russia and relates the situation in Russia to wider scholarship on the nature of masculinity more generally. Overall, the book contends that Russia's valuing of a strong, militaristic form of masculinity is a major problem.

This book, written from a feminist perspective, uses the focus of duelling to discuss the nature of masculinity in Russia. It traces the development of duelling and masculinity historically from the time of Peter the Great onwards, considers how duelling and masculinity have been represented in both literature and film and assesses the high emphasis given in Soviet times to gender equality, arguing that this was a failed experiment that ran counter to Russian tradition. It examines how duelling continues to be a feature of life in contemporary Russia and relates the situation in Russia to wider scholarship on the nature of masculinity more generally. Overall, the book contends that Russia's valuing of a strong, militaristic form of masculinity is a major problem.

Gender and Parenting in the Worlds of Alien and Blade Runner is a comparative, gendered analysis study of Ridley Scott's contributions to the genre of science fiction and horror cinema. Observing that while Ridley Scott's science fiction classics Blade Runner and Alien each feature future worlds in which space travel and off-earth colonies are commonplace, the author showcases how patriarchal and gendered expectations regarding women, usually associated with the past, still run rampant. Amanda DiGioia argues in this book that Scott has shifted from focusing on the future, and what humanity may be able to obtain from it, to a focus on facing mortality: what occurs after death and the futility of human existence. The opening chapter provides the necessary theoretical framework and background for the rest of the book, defining the Blade Runner films as science fiction works with elements of horror, from the corporeal to the existential, and the Alien universe as a collection of horror texts. The following chapters go on to discuss the idea of gender, across the works, ruminating on how humanity is in some instances nothing but a social construct that reinforces patriarchal myths about gender and power.

This multi-disciplinary edited collection explores the textual analysis of heavy metal lyrics written in languages other than English, including Yiddish, Latin, Russian, Austrian German, Spanish and Italian. The volume features fascinating chapters on the role of ancient language in heavy metal, the significance of metal in minority-language communities, Slovenian mythology in metal, heavy metal lyrics and politics in the Soviet Union and Taiwan, processing bereavement in Danish black metal, cultural identity in Norwegian-medium metal, and the Kawaii metal scene in Japan, amongst others. Applying a range of methodological approaches - from literary and content analysis to quantitative corpus methods and critical approaches - the book conceptualises various forms of identity via lyrical text and identifies a number of global themes in heavy metal lyrics, including authenticity, parody and the desire to sound extreme, that reoccur across different countries and languages. The book is essential reading for researchers and students of metal music and culture, as well as those with broader interests in cultural studies, musicology, literary studies and popular culture studies.

This book examines childbirth and parenting in horror texts. By analysing new texts, and re-analysing commonly used texts with new feminist methodology, this study provides a unique contribution to the fields of gender and horror studies. Focusing on horror fiction and film, this book reviews textual treatments of birth and motherhood, and how they differ from representations of fatherhood. Motherhood and birth are represented as revolting in several ways. Mothers in horror do not fulfil their gender role, and the neglect of motherhood by a woman is deemed horrific because it is the antithesis of Western patriarchal ideals of female identity. These mothers are unforgiven. Bad fathers, in contrast, are given moments of restoration that allow audiences or readers to feel immediate sympathy for them. Examining conception, birth, motherhood and fathers, this work provides a unique exploration of the monstrous and the marginalized within the horror genre.