Oltre i tabù: Contro-narrazioni sovversive del ciclo mestruale dagli anni Sessanta a oggi
Breaking taboos surrounding the menstrual cycle is a recurring theme in articles and contributions published over the past decade, indicative of the progressive cultural shift emerging in various fields (marketing, politics, publishing, etc.).
This volume offers a reading of Italian works, primarily novels, that address the various meanings of menstrual cycles and aims to address the still-deficient interest in the topic within literary studies. Drawing on a transdisciplinary approach centered on Foucauldian discourse analysis and starting from the deconstruction of the concept of taboo, it explores the counter-discursive significance of these texts in light of the sociocultural context they reflect. Through their explicit and complex treatment of menstruation, works such as Milena Milani’s La ragazza di nome Giulio (1964) and Carlo Lucarelli’s Almost Blue (1997) expose and challenge, even subverting, the monologic nature of the dominant discourse on the topic, which is both taboo and stigmatizing.
By sketching out a new cultural history of women’s periods, limited to the contemporary era, the study lays the foundation for a potential new field of research: Period Studies.
