From Silence to Storytelling

On Thursday, July 2, 2026, as part of Dr. Cora Rok’s seminar on shame in first-person narratives, Dr. Lisa Tenderini (University of Bonn) presented her completed research project on the presence of menstruation in Romance literatures, particularly Italian literature, as well as in public discourse since the 1960s. As Tenderini demonstrated using Milena Milani’s 1964 novel *La ragazza di nome Giulio*, explicit depictions of menstruation were—and still are today—the subject of controversial debates about the boundaries of obscenity and normality. The novel not only led to a court case but was also heavily censored in its French and German translations. Current discussions, such as those surrounding Balthus’s work *Thérèse rêvant*, make it clear that these controversies are by no means a thing of the past.

At the same time, however, a broadening of the discourse can be observed: in the media, particularly in advertising, but also in academia, this topic—long shrouded in shame—has become increasingly accepted. Numerous publications on the cultural history of menstruation attest to this development. Nevertheless, as Tenderini emphasized, even in scholarly discourse there is a certain hesitation to “call a spade a spade.” Literary studies of texts in which menstruation plays a central role—and fulfills, for example, a narrative function—often resort to euphemisms—precisely those linguistic circumlocutions that Tenderini has identified in her forthcoming book, drawing on literary and medical sources dating back to the Middle Ages. In doing so, she made it clear that academia itself shapes discourse and that a certain reticence persists toward a topic often considered profane.