By Way of Introduction: Girl(hood)s in Context
Girlhood in Context
Storytelling Girlhoods
PART I Fairy Tales and Emerging Girlhoods in the 20th and 21st Centuries
1: Towards (Un)taming Girlhood: Fairy Tales, Popular Culture, and the Cultural Imaginary
2: Forging New Pathways through the Forest: Red Riding Hood and New Becomings
The Journey through the Woods
Embracing the Wolf (Within): Red Riding Hood, Self-Knowledge, and Selfhood
The Huntsman with No Damsel in Distress to Save
3: Before They Were Evil, Before They Were Queens: Trauma, Female Rivalry and (Be)coming (into) Self
"It is not power that corrupts; it is powerlessness": How the Queen Becomes a Villain
Complicit and Compliant: Intergenerational Trauma and Female Relationships
Recovering Female Communitas: Kissing Old Stereotypes Good-bye?
PART II Unruly Girls: Warriors and Witches
4: Killer Girls: Red Riding Hood, the Wolf and Girl (Em)power(ed)
A Bloody Mess: Red Riding Hood, Werewolves, and Menstruation
Killer Girls Take (Back) Control: Red Riding Hood in Hard Candy and Freeway
5: This Princess Wears Combat Boots: The Dystopia of Girl Warrior Heroes
Girlhood on Display: The Girl Warrior Hero
Taking (Back) Control: (Personal) Performance and (Politicized) Becoming
A "New" Kind of Female Hero: The Fairy-Tale Princess Gets a Makeover
6: Beyond the Fairy-Tale Witch: Contemporary Girl(hood)s in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
Sabrina: Rebooting Mortal and Witch Girlhoods
Sisterhood and the Rise Against the Patriarchy
Conclusion
Biography
Cristina Santos is an Associate Professor of Hispanic and Latin American Studies. Her work focuses on sexuality and gender studies from an intersectional feminist perspective in the construct of "monstrous women" from an interdisciplinary and multi-cultural approach as seen in literature, film, television, popular culture and mythology. She also investigates the construct of political and social deviance and trauma in life narratives as the construction of a personal and communal sense of identity that challenges official history and patriarchy. She is the author of Unbecoming Female Monsters: Witches, Vampires, and Virgins.
‘Santos gives a thorough accounting of female-identifying adolescence in culturally-situated accounts that include both biology and psychology. . . . [Chapter 6] is perhaps the strongest chapter of an already stellar book because of the way it ties together all the previously discussed theoretical apparati in relation to one extended text: the Netflix television series The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018-2021). . . . Most significant to my mind is the importance of the new coinage “untaming”. This term proves to be extraordinarily useful in helping to demonstrate how texts can aid girls to reject ideological indoctrination and social positioning.
. . . Throughout her work, Santos makes a compelling case that modern retellings of fairy tales and young adult fiction serve similar purposes for their readers. . . . [It pushes] the boundaries of feminism in important directions that acknowledge intersectionality and materiality.’
- Roberta Seelinger Trites, International Journal of Young Adult Literature
