This chapter provides a chronological review of critical responses to Old Norse-Icelandic literature. The ‘book-prose vs free-prose’ debate is the starting-point for this overview, which then focuses on modern scholarship on sagas. The approach of the Icelandic school is discussed, followed by consideration of theoretical issues such as orality, structuralism, anthropological methods and the influence of non-Icelandic literary forms. Next come post-structuralism and narratology. The diversity of theoretical approaches which grew up towards the end of the twentieth century is documented, including post-colonialism and polysystem theory. Long-held generic distinctions are reviewed, and the development of gender studies with regard to Old Norse is described. Recent developments in the study of orality in prose and poetry are discussed, as are theoretical topics such as memory studies and the role of the paranormal. The chapter concludes with an account of the diversity of critical approaches to Old Norse-Icelandic literature and explains the need to employ integrated theories bringing in research from a number of disciplines, including archaeology, psychoanalysis and sociology.

This chapter shifts from male soldiers and issues of masculinity to the role of women in military plays. Described are the multiple and overlapping roles of women in the military–theatrical endeavor, which presents an alternative to traditional gestures such as contrasting active (male) citizenship with passive (female) domesticity. This chapter continues an examination of totalizing processes in Revolutionary-era theatricalized conflict by including French citoyennes in the military–theatrical endeavor. Interrogated here are three main categories for women and war in 1790s drama: female soldier (femmes-soldats; filles-soldats) plays, works about vivandières and cantinières (women providing service roles to combat units), and plays about the Revolution’s “militarized domestic sphere,” a wartime home front where armed conflict created specific forms of violent domesticity. With attention to military plays penned by women about their fellow citoyennes, as well as to recent feminist scholarship on women and war, this chapter explores a dramaturgical practice whereby women sought to reimagine citizenship after efforts to assert their rights in the political sphere ran asunder.

The postmodern moment was both important and turbulent in both anthropology and gender studies. This chapter focuses on how postmodern thought, which is described as being ant-foundational, engaged with thinking about gender and sexuality in gender studies and in anthropology, both in conjunction with each other as disciplines and in conjunction with feminist (and gay and lesbian) movements, which were influential during the same period. As an intellectual trend, the postmodern moment never attracted sufficient advocates to become a majority approach, and its time in the limelight was quickly over; nevertheless, the authors argue that the moment had lasting effects, particularly in terms of thinking about gender and sexuality. More specifically, they suggest that the introduction of postmodern thought affected the politicization of thought about gender and sexuality in the academy. In gender studies, it coincided with the founding of the discipline; in anthropology, it initially most notably came through the route of feminist-inspired kinship studies, and later through the influence of queer on studies of sexuality and embodiment.

This introductory chapter explains the inspirations behind the book’s creation, its structure, and the approach adopted, and provides an overview of the chapters and the manner in which each contributes to the volume and illuminates specific topics and debates in anthropological theory and in the anthropology of gender and sexuality.

For a long time, studies on terrorism as a historical phenomenon have neglected gender as an analytical category. In political science, and especially Gender Studies or gendered Security Studies, however, gender has become an issue since 9/11 and the growing participation of Muslim women in terrorist attacks. These studies, however, mostly interpret terrorism as a phenomenon which emerged first in the twentieth century and, if they work historically, they compare case studies dealing with post-Second World War phenomena with recent examples of political non-state violence. The important varieties of nineteenth-century terrorism are frequently neglected. Moreover, these authors use terms with a centuries-old gendered tradition, for example ‘hero’ or ‘martyr’, without reflecting the historically rooted gendered implications of these terms and without taking account of the gendered traditions of the representation of male or female political violence which go back more than two hundred years. This paper wants to address this lack of historical contextualisation. In a gendered historical perspective we ask: what role has gender played in the development of modern terrorism during the nineteenth century? What are the gendered stereotypes concerning political violence which have been constructed and transmitted since the early nineteenth century? And in what way do these stereotypes influence recent interpretations of terrorism and historical research on terrorism?

While childhood and same-sex sexuality play a key role in early American studies, the aging straight woman has not found significant purchase. This study of post-reproductive sexuality in early American culture attempts to change that. It focuses on the 1810 novel Rosa; or, American Genius and Education to note that mature white women frequently served as literary objects of desire. They were just as likely to be ridiculed. What differentiated the compelling from the absurd postmenopausal subject was her attitude toward her own sexuality. In a heteronormative Anglo-American context, only those women who had renounced sex were erotic. Their recalcitrance, in turn, exemplified meritorious literary discourse. As such, the fact that sexy older women proliferated throughout the pages of early American novels should not fool us into complacency regarding the period’s tendency to represent womanhood as a figurative locus of civic norms that were nonetheless premised upon their participatory exclusion.

Most books on the psychology of women are based on a Western perspective. International students and scholars question the validity and relevance of the theories and practices that focus on a restricted population of women and ignore the diverse experience among women within and across countries based on the intersection of sex, gender, sexuality, and social locations. How can we have a universal psychology of women that routinely ignores most of the women in the world? To answer this question, we assembled teams of writers from different regions of the world or familiar with different cultures. We realized that some regions of the world may not have enough quality psychological research to be represented, but we strived to get as broad a coverage as possible. The result is a coherent picture of women’s lives in places that have been underrepresented in the mainstream literature. Gender disparity and inequity prevail in all cultures with common mechanisms. A gender-sensitive and culturally relevant psychology can identify strategies and programs to accelerate global progress toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #5 on gender equality. Where relevant research is available, culture-specific aspects of the topic are featured to highlight the gender issues of concern to particular regions or cultural groups. We believe that the diversity in the range of perspectives included in the chapters through the lenses of authors originating from different cultures will enrich the learning experience of readers.