In her new book Murderesses in German writing, Susanne Kord (Chair of German, UCL) tells us that Dr. Zelle, speaking on the aesthetics of horror, concludes that the enjoyment of horror only becomes possible once the ethical dimension is neutralized. I like that dichotomy and see it in my study of the femme fatale. The horror is enjoyable in part because in the very definition of the femme fatale, the ethical dimension is indeed neutralized - by the victim's complicity, to use one word, and the victims of the femme fatale are sometimes treated just as shabbily after they're murdered as they were before.
Speaking of the femme fatale, the latest entry in the Clews Podcast, devoted to the world's worst femmes fatales, is all about the Salem Witch Trial of 1933, otherwise known as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts versus Josephine Costello - a real corker.
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