Edited by Andrea Carosso and Eva-Sabine Zehelein

The stereotype of the traditional nuclear family, consisting of a white man called “father”, a white woman called “mother” and their mutual genetic offspring called “children” who all perform preconceived gendered role models, has stuck like scotch-tape, in spite of the fact that it has represented an exceedingly short-lived phenomenon of the mid-20th century. Over the last decades, this “nuclear family” has been challenged: the term has been cracked open, redefined, broadened and adapted to the contexts and ways in which people are living and loving today, and which include patchwork, same sex parentage, single mothers and fathers, and children with parents who are not genetically related. All these and more constellations are omnipresent lived realities.

This thematic issue of CoSMo, including contributions especially from the fields of literary and cultural studies, addresses the recent proliferation of representations of these ongoing transformations. Articles explore the past, but primarily the present of “family” from a Euro-American perspective on the basis of a very broad understanding of the term “text” – which includes literary texts, Hollywood film, documentary, TV series, and advertising.

The New Nabokov, edited by Andrea Carosso and Giuliana Ferreccio

Unburied Memory, edited by Giuliana Ferreccio and Daniela Nelva

A cura di Marta Ciccolari Micaldi