Rachel Davidson – författare

No longer just a cult classic, Gilmore Girls is a cultural staple for TV fans. Airing from 2000–2007, Gilmore Girls focused on the relationship between thirty-something single mom Lorelai and her teenage daughter, Rory. While exploring themes of family, romantic love, friendship, and life’s choices, this quirky show featured fast-paced dialogue, funny quips, and a steady stream of pop-culture references. Created by Amy Sherman-Palladino (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Gilmore Girls served as a launching pad for the careers of its stars—including Lauren Graham, Melissa McCarthy, Alexis Bledel, Jared Padalecki, and Milo Ventimiglia. The series’ popularity was so enduring that ten years after its initial run, a revival season was released on Netflix. In Gilmore Girls: A Cultural History, Lara C. Stache and Rachel Davidson offer an engaging analysis of the popular series. The authors examine how the show serves as a representation of American culture and politics, reflects complexity within multiple mother-daughter dynamics, and employed literature, movies, and music to drive the dialogue and plot. They also explore how the choices made in the series reflect social values of the time, reinforce and challenge traditional ideas of gender and feminism, and unpack the cultural significance of this endearing series. As both a mirror and a construction of contemporary American culture, the series achieved critical accolades and became a cult classic, at once both unassuming and dynamic. This book offers new ways for fans to appreciate the appeal and value of this binge-worthy favorite as part of the larger culture in which it exists. Gilmore Girls: A Cultural History will be of interest to fans of the show as well as to scholars and students of television, media, and American popular culture.

Maternal Narratives in Public Contexts: Shaping Perspectives and Enacting Identities brings together critical research on the construction and enactment of mothering and motherhood in public spheres. The book is divided into two parts – in the first part, authors examine how prevailing ideals of motherhood influence twenty-first century culture by exploring iterations of maternal identity in various media forms, from Dr. Spock’s self-help guide to film and small-screen entertainment. In the second part, the authors investigate how tropes of motherhood manifest and operate in academia, the workplace, and in political spheres. Ultimately, this book explores how maternal identities are both formed and articulated in public discourse, arguing that rhetorical influences inform the ways in which we define, recognize, and enact maternal identities and the sociocultural ramifications that result within communication contexts. Scholars of communication, media studies, film and television studies, cultural studies, rhetoric, and women’s and gender studies will find this book of particular interest.