| Description |
viii, 217 pages ; 23 cm |
| Summary |
"Alison Horbury investigates the reprisal of the myth of Persephone - a mother-daughter plot of separation and initiation - in post-feminist television cultures where, she argues, it functions as a symptom expressing a complex around the question of sexual difference - what Lacan calls 'sexuation', where this question has been otherwise foreclosed. She takes four television heroines dramatizing this Persephone symptom - Ally McBeal, Sydney Bristow, Veronica Mars, and Meredith Grey - to show what is unconscious in this symptom, and identifies an impasse in feminist cultural criticisms as they respond to post-feminist cultures where ideas about feminine sexuation conflict with poststructuralist thought on the topic of 'woman'. She introduces psychoanalytic approaches to the novel to rethink the engagement of audiences with long-form serial narrative, and suggests that post-feminist discourses manifesting in Persephone's story offer us a cultural symptom that, when analysed, offers us new reflections on feminism today"-- Provided by publisher. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Contents |
Introduction -- Why Persephone? -- 1.The myth of Persephone and The hymn to Demeter -- 2. Persephone in heroine television: The post-feminist Impasse -- 3. Persephone as narrative symptom: narrative transactions in long-form viewership -- 4.Persephone as epistemological impasse: the real body of Sydney Bristow and 'The woman here depicted' -- 5. Persephone as methodological impasse: feminine jouissance in Veronica's 'Two stories' -- 6. Persephone as historical impasse: 'Confrontation and accommodation' of the post-feminist heroine -- Conclusion : The Persephone complex. |
| Subject |
Women on television.
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Women on television. |
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Heroines on television.
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Heroines on television. |
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Sex role on television.
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Sex role on television. |
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Persephone (Greek deity) -- On television.
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Persephone (Greek deity) |
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Feminism.
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Feminism. |
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Feminism. |
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Women's movement. |
| ISBN |
1137511362 (hardback) |
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9781137511362 (hardback) |
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