Intersectional Trauma in American Women Writers' Incest Novels from the 1990s - Paperback

by Marinella Rodi-Risberg (Author)

This book explores the intersections of sexualized, gendered, and racialized traumas in five US novels about father-daughter incest from the 1990s. It examines how incest can be connected to wider past and present structural oppression and institutional abuse, and what fiction looks like that testifies against and references a historical background of slavery, poverty, settler colonialism, annexation, and immigration. Investigating the means of resistance used against attempts at silencing and denial in these texts, the book also shows how contemporary women's novels can propose social change. Overall, this study uniquely argues that the individual trauma of incest in these texts must be understood in relation to histories of and present collective wounding against marginalized communities. By sitting at the intersections between trauma theory and US third world feminism, it allows for theory to meet literary activism.

Back Jacket

This book explores the intersections of sexualized, gendered, and racialized traumas in five US novels about father-daughter incest from the 1990s. It examines how incest can be connected to wider past and present structural oppression and institutional abuse, and what fiction looks like that testifies against and references a historical background of slavery, poverty, settler colonialism, annexation, and immigration. Investigating the means of resistance used against attempts at silencing and denial in these texts, the book also shows how contemporary women's novels can propose social change. Overall, this study uniquely argues that the individual trauma of incest in these texts must be understood in relation to histories of and present collective wounding against marginalized communities. By sitting at the intersections between trauma theory and US third world feminism, it allows for theory to meet literary activism.
​Marinella Rodi-Risberg is an affiliated researcher at the Department of Language and Communication Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She has published on representations of trauma in journals and chapters, including in Trauma and Literature (2018), and is co-editor of Transnational Crime Fiction: Mobility, Borders, and Detection (2020).

Author Biography

Marinella Rodi-Risberg is an affiliated researcher at the Department of Language and Communication Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She has published on representations of trauma in journals and chapters, including in Trauma and Literature (2018), and is co-editor of Transnational Crime Fiction: Mobility, Borders, and Detection (2020).