Eva-Sabine Zehelein is an adjunct professor of American studies at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt and fellow at the Brandeis Women's Studies Research Center. She specializes in 20th and 21st century North American literatures and (popular) cultures and leads the international and interdisciplinary research group »Family Matters«.
Andrea Carosso is a professor of American literature and culture at the Department of International Languages and Literatures at Università di Torino, where he coordinates the post-graduate program in English and American Studies. His books include Cold War Narratives. American Culture in the 1950s (2012), Urban Cultures in the United States (2010), and Invito alla lettura di Vladimir Nabokov (1999).
Aida Rosende-Pérez is an assistant professor at the University of the Balearic Islands, where she teaches in the fields of American literature and culture, as well as gender studies. Her research has focused primarily on the politics and poetics of transnational feminism, with emphasis on the narratives and (audio)visual productions of contemporary Irish women writers and artists.

Frontmatter 1
Contents 5
Introduction: Family in Crisis? 9
The Long-Term Impact of Growing Up Poor - the Italian Case 27
Family Change and Welfare Reform in the United States Since the 1970s 37
Patrimonial Benefits Arising from Family Crises 47
Multiparentality and New Structures of Family Relationship 59
Assisted Reproductive Technologies and Lesbian Families 79
"He's Not Family" 89
Narrative Ethics in HBO's Big Little Lies 101
(De)Constructing Gender and Family Roles in Helen Simpson's Short Stories 111
Black Orphans, Adoption, and Labor in Antebellum American Literature 123
Anne Frank, Franz Kafka and Charles Lindbergh "at the kitchen table in Newark" 135
Family Crises on the Frontiers 145
Cinematic Violence and Ideological Transgression 155
Kinship at the Margins 167
Donald the Family Planner 181
Of Turkish Women and Other Foreigners 193
Closing Remarks - By a Family Lawyer 205
About the contributors 209