Susanne Kord: Murderesses in German Writing, 1720-1860: Heroines of Horror
Forthcoming with Cambridge University Press (2009)
Contents
1: Criminal Women: On Bodies, Paradoxes, Performances and Tales
A Game in the Dark: The Principle of Paradox
The Gender of Crime: Testimonies
In the Hall of Mirrors: Theories of Investigation
Searching the Scene of the Crime: Modus Operandi
2: The Evil Eye: Witches
When Looks Could Kill: The Case of Anna Göldi (Glarus, 1782)
The Blue-Eyed Monster: Case Studies of Anna Louisa Karsch (1775-1858)
3: The Plague: Vampires
Outbreak: Serbian Vampires Come to Life in Germany (Leipzig, 1732-33)
What is at Stake, or Why we cannot let it (them) rest
Bloodbaths: The Case of Elizabeth Báthory (born 1560, sentenced
1611,
died 1614, returned from the grave from 1729 on)
Containment: Female Vampires in Literature from Goethe to the Grimms,
1797-1823
4: Pride: Husband-Killers
Murderous Marriages and Marriage as Murder
The Case of Maria Katharina Wächtler (Hamburg, 1786-88)
and the Debate on Torture
The Case of Christiane Ruthardt (Stuttgart, 1844-45)
and the Death Penalty Debate
The Ethical Mandate and the Aesthetics of Horror
5: Shame: Childkillers
Women as Children, Women as Childkillers: Poetic Images (1770-90)
‘Public Whores’ and ‘Honourable Women’:
Philosophical and Legal Issues (1760-1800)
Criminals of Lost Honour? The Cases of Dorothea Altwein and Johanna Catharina Höhn (Weimar, 1781/1783)
6: The Female Self: Poisoners
The Self-Evident and Evidence: Criminologists and Psychologists
on Poison and Gender
Self-Delusion: Literati, Lawyers and Physicians on Poison and Class
Selfishness and Self-lessness: The Case of Gesche Gottfried
(Bremen, 1815-1831)
Self-Assertion: Chamisso’s Gesche Gottfried (1828)
7: The End: The Etiquette of Execution
Final Scenes: Willing Confessions, Good Deaths and Grateful Corpses
Final Thoughts: The Power of the People, the Gender of the Mob
and the Progress of Civilisation
Works Cited
Index
Acknowledgments
Cover Illustration: Philip Burne-Jones, The Vampire, 1897
