"Horbury's innovative use of the Persephone myth to explain the recurring themes and pleasures of 'heroine television' in post-feminist programming is fresh, convincing and illuminating. After historically contextualizing the myth through foundational accounts and interpretations, the book usefully draws on both literary and clinical psychoanalysis to argue its continuing relevance to contemporary culture. Judicious attention to Ally McBeal acknowledges the ... Read morekey place this text has had in the development of post-feminist television and its criticism, while each subsequent chapter uses an example that enables the exploration of a different facet of post-feminist culture as understood through the Persephone myth. The book offers new insights into contemporary culture that go well beyond the serials discussed, constituting an original shift in psychoanalytic methods of cultural interpretation that is sure to have an impact on debates about television and post-feminism." - Jane Arthurs, Professor in Television, Middlesex University, UK "Learned, scholarly, respectful, Horbury's work is a return in the real on which the feminine question is waged. The mysteries of Eleusis stand revealed." - Tim Themi, author of Lacan's Ethics and Nietzsche's critique of Platonism, (2014) Show Less