Down the Road and Back Again: Critical Approaches to the Golden Girls

This is the first book‑length study of The Golden Girls, which ran for seven award‑winning seasons from 1985 to 1992 and produced two spin-offs.

Through a cultural studies approach, this collection examines a wide range of topics, including race, sexuality, queerness, memory, familial mythmaking, aging, health, and financial precarity. Featuring contributions from an international team of scholars, this book highlights the enduring relevance and cultural impact of the show, even 30 years after its original airing.

Offering fresh insights into its cross‑generational and cross‑cultural appeal, Down the Road and Back Again is intended for scholars of pop culture and fans of the show.

Jill E. Anderson is an Associate Professor of English and Women’s Studies at Tennessee State University. She is the author of Homemaking for the Apocalypse: Domesticating Horror in Atomic Age Media and Culture (2021) and the co‑editor of Beyond the Haunted House: Shirley Jackson and Domesticity (2020).

Alissa Burger is an Associate Professor of English at Culver‑Stockton College. She teaches courses in research, writing, and literature, specializing in gender, horror, and the Gothic. She is the author of IT, Chapters One & Two (Devil’s Advocates Series), The Quest for the Dark Tower: Genre and Interconnection in the Stephen King Series (2021), Teaching Stephen King: Horror, the Supernatural, and New Approaches to Literature (2016), and The Wizard of Oz as American Myth: A Critical Study of Six Versions of the Story, 1900–2007 (2012).