Encompassing literature, theatre, opera, and art Beauty or Beast? explores representations of the transgressive and frightening figure of the woman warrior in German culture. Watanabe-O'Kelly examines some of the most compelling works of Western culture - Cranach's and Klimt's paintings of Judith, Schiller's Joan of Arc, Hebbel's Judith, Wagner's Brünnhilde, Fritz Lang's Brünhild, and the ways in which women writers come to engage with these
imaginings.