Twins in Contemporary Literature and Culture

JULIANA DE NOOY lectures in the contemporary studies program at the University of Queensland, Australia. Her first book, Derrida, Kristeva and the Dividing Line, compared influential poststructuralist conceptions of difference. Her research continues to focus on questions of identity and difference as they arise in narrative genres and in intercultural communication.

Stories of twins are told with astonishing frequency in contemporary culture. Films and novels from recent decades repeatedly tell of the stranglehold of brotherly love, the evil twin who steals her sister's lover, the homicidal mutant twin, the reunion of twins separated at birth, warring twins, and confusion between look-alikes.Stories of twins are told with astonishing frequency in contemporary culture. Films and novels from recent decades repeatedly tell of the stranglehold of brotherly love, the evil twin who steals her sister's lover, the homicidal mutant twin, the reunion of twins separated at birth, warring twins, and confusion between look-alikes. Twins in Contemporary Literature and Culture asks why we keep telling twin tales and how these have been transformed in recent retellings to reflect the preoccupations of the times.