Gender and the Representation of Evil [Hardcover]

This edited collection examines gendered representations of evil in history, the arts, and literature. Scholars often explore the relationships between gender, sex, and violence through theories of inequality, violence against women, and female victimization, but what happens when women are the perpetrators of violent or harmful behavior? How do we define evil ? What makes evil men seem different from evil women? When women commit acts of violence or harmful behavior, how are they represented differently from men? How do perceptions of class, race, and age influence these representations? How have these representations changed over time, and why? What purposes have gendered representations of evil served in culture and history? What is the relationship between gender, punishment of evil behavior, and equality?

Introduction: Gender and the Representation of Evil

[Lynne Fallwell and Keira V. Williams]

Section I: Narrative Foundations

1. Fifty Sisters Cant All Be Bad: The Early Modern Reception of the Legend of Albina

[Phil Robinson-Self]

2. Demanding an Explanation: Rhetorical Apologia and the Construction of Evil in Victorian Literature

[Anna McHugh]

3. Amazon, Goddess, and Valkyrie: Re-Reading the Roots of Female Sadism in Krafft-Ebings Psychopathia Sexualis

[Elizabeth Schreiber-Byers]

Section II: True Crime

4. Fashioned in the Image of the Devil : Murderess Maria Manning as the Lady Macbeth of Bermondsey

[Nicole Anae]

5. Gender and Calamity in the British Empire: The Murderous Duo of Raya and Sakina of Alexandria

[Stephanie Boyle]

6. Of Nuló3