Susanne Kord Knihy

"Susanne Kord offers a critical re-examination of the traditional image of this most pivotal of all female Enlightenment authors. Central to Kord's discussion are Gottsched's dramas and her letters to Johann Christoph Gottsched, her husband and mentor, and to Dorothea Henriette von Runckel, her friend and confidante. Both the letters, edited and censored by Runckel, and the plays, commissioned and edited by her husband, reveal a number of intriguing "detours" from the path of conventionality: biographical aberrations in her letters (her chagrined loyalty to her husband, her passionate "friendship" with Runckel) and poetological deviations from her husband's poetics expressed in her dramas."--Jacket

Hollywood Divas, Indie Queens, and TV Heroines critically examines the portrayal of women in modern cinema, analyzing over thirty hits and the personas of stars like Julia Roberts and indie icons like Parker Posey. Recommended for film enthusiasts seeking insight into gender messages in mainstream culture.

"This is the first comparative study of a highly unlikely group of authors: eighteenth-century women peasants in England, Scotland, and Germany, women who, as a rule, received little or no formal education and lived by manual labor, many of them in dire poverty. Among them are the English washerwoman Mary Collier, the English domestic servants Elizabeth Hands and Molly Leapor, the German cowherd Anna Louisa Karsch, the Scottish diarywoman Janet Little, the Scottish domestic servant Christian Milne, and the English milkmaid Ann Cromartie Yearsley. Their literature is here linked with one of the major eighteenth-century aesthetic trends in all three countries, the Natural Genius craze, which culminated in highland primitivism in Scotland and England, and in the Sturm und Drang in Germany."--Jacket

Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys (1995) was a commercial and critical success, but it is Gilliam's least understood film, even on the basic plot level. Aside from recognizable debts to specific films such as La Jetée (1962) and Dr. Strangelove (1964), 12 Monkeys plays with a number of apocalypse and postapocalypse movies, sci-fi, nuclear noir, and what is becoming known as "geek dystopia." This volume in the Constellations series examines Gilliam's film-and briefly the TV series based on it-in the context of post-apocalypse movies and with an eye to the film's major themes, including mental illness, conspiracy theories, the impossibility of human closeness, and the nature of reality. It is the first to read 12 Monkeys's portrayal of time travel in light of Einstein's ideas about time and to ask what answers these ideas suggest to the film's most basic philosophical the problem of free will versus determinism.

The way deviant women - murderesses, witches, vampires - are perceived and represented reveals much about what a society considers the norm for acceptable female behaviour. Drawing on extensive archival records and published texts, Susanne Kord investigates the stories of eight famous murderesses in Germany as they were told in legal, psychological, philosophical and literary writings. Kord interrogates the role of representation in legal judgment and the way the emancipation of women was perceived to be linked to their crimes. She demonstrates how perceptions of normal and criminal women permeated not only legal thought but also seemingly unrelated cultural spheres - from poetry, philosophy and physiognomy to early psychological profiling. A major work of German cultural history, this highly original book raises thought-provoking questions about eighteenth- and nineteenth-century gender norms in ways that continue to resonate today.

Kord and Krimmer analyze male archetypes in Hollywood films from 1992 to 2008, exploring how these portrayals reflect evolving concepts of masculinity amid political and social changes. Their study of over sixty films reveals the deep connection between cinema and contemporary issues, including consumerism and the War on Terror.

Exploring the perception of female criminals, this analysis delves into their representation within the legal system and broader societal views. It examines the cultural narratives surrounding women who commit crimes, highlighting the contrasts between legal interpretations and public opinion. The book sheds light on gender biases and societal norms that shape the understanding of female criminality, offering a critical perspective on how these women are judged and portrayed throughout history.