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JOANNA BOURKE

Blogs
Here are my latest blogs! Enjoy.


Interview with Miranda Melcher
A very enjoyable interview about 'Five Evil Women' with the wonderful Miranda Melcher on New Books Network. You can listen to it here: https://newbooksnetwork.com/five-evil-women . Why do certain women become icons of evil? My new book, Five Evil Women: Hindley, West, Wuornos, Homolka, Tucker (Reaktion, 2026) is the first comparative, non-sensationalist account of five of the most reviled women in the modern Anglophone world: Myra Hindley, Rosemary West, Aileen Wuornos, Karl
Mar 141 min read


'Evil Women': Eve's Legacies
On 1 March 2026, my new book will be published. It is called: Five Evil Women: Hindley, West, Wuornos, Homolka, Tucker (Reaktion Books). So, I have decided to re-post a few talks I gave on 'evil women'. These are some of the women who did not make it into the book version. The woman for today is Eve. According to Jewish and Christian Creation myth, Eve introduced evil into Paradise, leading to the banishment of humanity (and, indeed, all life) from the Garden of Eden. There
Feb 2613 min read


Five Evil Women
My new book will be published on 1 March 2026, with the amazing publisher, Reaktion Books. Five 'evil' women.... Myra Hindley, Aileen Wuornos, Rosemary West, Karla Homolka, and Karla Faye Tucker. The book is a non-sensationalist history of five women who have been called 'icons of evil'. What do we mean when we label a person 'evil'? How else might we understand their acts of extreme cruelty? Why should we bother thinking about them at all? The central question I have struggl
Jan 21 min read


Pornography: A History
Pornography is divisive. It is guaranteed to incite heated debates between people inhabiting different subject positions based on...
Feb 5, 202420 min read
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