Supernatural Mothers and Wombs of Discontent
Exploring Horror's Deviant Reproductions
Supernatural Mothers and Wombs of Discontent
Exploring Horror's Deviant Reproductions
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Description
This volume offers readers a dedicated examination of supernatural motherhood as it intersects with horror in diverse contexts as a contribution to growing research into the monstrous feminine and gynae horror.
Contributors examine the womb and the mother as separate sources of supernatural reproduction in horror film, television, and literature to argue that reproduction and the supernatural go hand in hand and that the alchemy of pregnancy and birth offers a myriad critical possibilities in horror. Part one opens with an examination of the challenges both to power and of power that the witch figure represents before turning to the mother as othered in the face of supernatural reproduction. Part two then turns to the womb, examining more closely its role in gynae horror and its relationship to the abject. The volume brings these two parts together from a variety of perspectives to interrogate motherhood as an expression of systemic power relations, with the supernatural functioning as a foil against which the social construction of birth, birthing, and motherhood may be reconsidered.
Table of Contents
Ruth Barratt-Peacock (Independent Scholar, UK)
Part I: Witches
1. WandaVision: When Horror (Re)frames Magical Motherhood
Ruth Barratt-Peacock (Independent Scholar, UK)
2. The Witch as Anti-Mother in Eggers's The Witch
Mark Henderson (Tuskegee University, USA)
3. Irish Witches, Familiars, and Mother Earth: Exploitation of Women, Animals, and the Environment in Irish History and Modern Media
Evelyn Suttle (Advocate, Ireland)
Part II: M/Others
4. M/othering and the Abject in Molly Cochran's The Third Magic
Radhia Flah Gaich (University of Sousse, Tunisia)
5. Magical Vulnerability and Vulnerable Magic: The Witch (M)Other in Salman Rushdie's Victory City
Sreelakshmy M (National Institute of Technology, India)
6. Fangs and Phalluses: The Barren, Pregnant Vampire
Evie Kendal (Swinburne University of Technology, Australia)
Part II: Wombs and Their Progeny
7. Wombs of Discontent: Unveiling Gender Abjection through Dolls in Lucky McKee's May
Amylou Ahava (Independent Scholar, USA)
8. Chapter 8: Gynae Horror in Select Hindi Cinema: The Womb as The Element of Horror
Shrenya Soni (Independent Scholar, India)
9. A Haunting Healing in Toni Morrison's Beloved
Jeff Ambrose (Delaware County Community College, USA)
10. Chapter 10: Miscarriage in Contemporary Film: Visualizing the Unseen Through the Horror Scene
Katherine Cottle (Goucher College, USA)
About the Contributors
Index
Product details
| Published | 01 Oct 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Hardback |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 208 |
| ISBN | 9798216365716 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 1 bw illus |
| Dimensions | 229 x 152 mm |
| Series | Research in Horror Studies |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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