Family in Crisis?

1. Why did You chose this topic?

Families are an ideal prism through which central contemporary national as well as transnational, international, and global, phenomena, interconnections and crises can be highlighted and debated. To study how today's families cross borders, and how cultural texts (de)construct, take part in, and mirror family discourses is an ideal lens to analyze a broad variety of social and cultural transformation at this historical juncture.

2. What new perspectives does your book offer?

The comparative and interdisciplinary contributions by German, Italian, Spanish and American scholars with an exceptionally broad range of backgrounds - English and American Studies, sociology and anthropology, law, media and gender studies, as well as history - highlight how restrictive the nuclear family model is, and yet, as we show, it underlies all discourses and debates and often also practices of ›doing family.‹

3. What makes your topic relevant for current research debates?

Families are complex units as well as concepts, and they are fundamental core elements of social existence and action. From sociological research to readings of current cultural texts, this volume tries to make sense of the shift in social and cultural practices and perceptions of families, at a time when families are so varied - mono- or pluripaternal, with, e.g., hetero-, homosexual, or transgender adults/parents - yet barely acknowledged and not treated equal.

4. Choose one person you would like to discuss your book with!

Anyone interested in the ethics and politics of the family as a critical and crucial concept, institution, and everyday practice, both historically and in the contemporary moment.

5. Your book summary in one sentence:

An interdisciplinary, comparative study of shifting notions as well as practices of family in times of conservative backlash over reproductive rights.