ABSTRACT

This volume brings together scholars, students and writers as well as artists from around the world. By choosing a thematic focus on "transition" in women’s lives, we present research on women who have crossed biological, geopolitical and political borders as well as emotional, sexual, cultural and linguistic boundaries. The international approach brings together different cultures and genres in order to emphasize the links and connections that bind women together, rather than those which separate them. The chapters consider the ways in which the changes and transitions women undergo influence the world we live in. We are particularly interested in the idea of crossing borders and how this influences identity and belonging, and the theme of crossing boundaries in the context of motherhood as well as sexual orientation. The topic is timely given the waves of migration all around the world in recent times. The contributors deal with issues central to contemporary life, such as gender equality and women’s empowerment, as well as understanding women’s identities and being sensitive to fluid concepts of gender and sexuality. 

part I|82 pages

Crossing Boundaries

chapter 1|12 pages

The Making of To See a Woman 1

chapter 2|16 pages

Exposing the Monstrous Double

The Body in Crisis in Meritxell Bosch's Graphic AutobiographyDiana Aramburu

chapter 4|14 pages

Dichotomies of the Feminine

Mediating Women and the Boundaries of the Primordial in Ancient Egyptian Textual Culture

chapter 5|10 pages

Cascading Transitions

Becoming a Writer and Engaging with Neurodiversity in Response to Motherhood

chapter 6|12 pages

The Ambiguity of Pain

Self, Fragments and Female Connection in Chen Ran's A Private Life

part II|129 pages

Crossing Borders

chapter 7|9 pages

Vanishing Lines

chapter 8|15 pages

Border Crossing Bibliophiles

Just in Bookcase by Istanbul Queer Art Collective

chapter 9|14 pages

Transitional Figures

Partition, Victimhood and Agency in Two Fictions by Jyotirmoyee Devi

chapter 10|16 pages

Transnational Melancholia

Depression and Exile in Italian Women's Poetry from the Early-Modern to the Contemporary

chapter 11|17 pages

Narrative Horsepower in Julia Kristeva's Fiction

Reading Movement in Meurtre à Byzance (2004) and Thérèse mon amour (2008)

chapter 12|19 pages

‘Putting the Fish in the Stream’ 1

The Intersection of Literature and Biography in Guidebooks to (Clarice Lispector's) Rio and (Maria Ondina Braga's) Braga

chapter 13|19 pages

Reading Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels with the Grain

The View of a Female Academic from Southern Italy

chapter 14|18 pages

Stepping out into Cyberspace

How Women Negotiate Digital Spaces in Politics, Economics and Culture