tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65690029933198171232024-03-13T12:41:25.251-07:00Motherhood in post-1968 European Literature NetworkAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01664165744232621567noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569002993319817123.post-87999070571258369452014-01-13T06:14:00.001-08:002014-01-13T06:14:30.846-08:00Review of Marie Darrieussecq, 'Tom is Dead', by Gill Rye<!--StartFragment-->
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<b>BOOK REVIEW<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b>Marie
Darrieussecq, <i>Tom is Dead</i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>, trans.
Lia Hills (Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2012 [2009]); originally published in
French as </b></span><b><i>Tom est mort </i></b><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>(Paris:
P.O.L., 2007)<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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Marie
Darrieussecq’s novel, <i>Tom is Dead</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, has
been translated from the French into several languages, including Italian,
Danish, Dutch and Spanish in addition to English. The English translation by
Lia Hills is excellent. Set in Australia, the novel represents the narrative of
a bereaved mother who is writing about the aftermath of her son’s death, aged
four-and-a-half, soon after the family’s move to Sydney ten years earlier. The
novel became somewhat controversial in France, when French author Camille
Laurens, at that time with the same publishing company as Darrieussecq, accused
her of ‘plagiarising her psyche’. Laurens, who had published her text </span><i>Philippe
</i><span style="font-style: normal;">(1995) in the aftermath of the death at
birth of her baby son, maintained that Darrieussecq should not write about
maternal bereavement because she herself had not experienced it. In fact, the
loss of a child (and the fear of such a loss) permeates Darrieussecq’s oeuvre
and, although she personally has not lost a child, the theme apparently has
biographical resonances in her family. Darrieussecq hit back with a major study
of plagiarism, </span><i>Rapport de police </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(2010)
[</span><i>Police Report</i><span style="font-style: normal;">], which is also a
manifesto for creative writing and a defence of fiction in particular.
Laurens’s published outburst, almost 20 years after the death of her own son,</span><i>
</i><span style="font-style: normal;">arguably says more about a bereaved
maternal subjectivity and the ongoing impact of a child’s death on a parent
than it does about plagiarism. In particular, it emphasises the sense of
singularity of such a loss, the feeling that no one else can suffer as much or
in the same way, and, moreover, it articulates the </span><i>desire</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> that this loss and its impact is singular.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i>Tom is Dead </i><span style="font-style: normal;">explores the long slow process of grief and mourning from the inside,
from the mother’s memory of the bereavement and its aftermath. Only at the end
of the book does the reader learn how Tom died. Darrieussecq excels in finding
ways in her work to express the inexpressible, and in this novel, she
experiments with a whole range of language effects, metaphors, images and
formal strategies to evoke the mother’s state of mind at different stages of
her grief. For example, in a moment akin to Proustian involuntary memory, the
bereaved mother recovers her son’s presence in the smell of baby shampoo: ‘That
smell, all of a sudden. Fourteen years on. And Tom was there, baby Tom,
contained in the bottle. […] I open the bottle and I’m with Tom, at bath time
in our apartment in Vancouver. </span><i>At home</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. […] I open the bottle and I intoxicate myself with Tom. The past
enclosed in the bottle. The past present, in the present, as soon as I open it.
[…] Tom is in this bottle. Time stops. A laughing mouth, a rubber duck, dark
wet hair, steam. He’s there’ (67-68). Her son is of course only there in her
mind but, to her, his presence is real. Likewise, in the long episode in the
novel where she hears his voice calling </span><i>Mummy </i><span style="font-style: normal;">and tries to record it, she believes she really is in
communication with him: ‘I loved his calls. I stopped still. ‘</span><i>Montre-toi</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.’ Show yourself. I thought these words intensely, so
that he’d hear me’ (97). Here, the narrative attests to a state of grief and
mourning in which the mother impossibly communicates with, and conjures up the
presence of, her dead child, because she </span><i>needs</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> to. </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The mother-narrator of <i>Tom is Dead </i><span style="font-style: normal;">is a writer in the process of writing her account,
and the novel is also a reflection on the role of writing. For her, writing is
not a form of therapy, but an exploration of </span><i>how</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> to speak about her child’s death and its impact. Ten
years on, she maintains that time does not heal, but that the pain of loss is
just as intense if less frequent than in the immediate aftermath. Indeed, the
question at the root of the narrator’s account – and Darrieussecq’s – is
whether it is even possible to express a mother’s experience of the loss of her
child, and if so how? She tells of how she struggled with what, for her, was a
new language, vocabulary, and concepts brought about by the death of her son:
the funeral rituals, what to do with the ashes, how to process that he has
gone. She tries to comprehend – and express – how she survives and the impact
the loss has on her identity: ‘Tom’s mother is gone. The one who Tom saw. The
one I was in Tom’s eyes, born with Tom and for Tom’ (154). And, in her mind,
Tom himself is also a victim of this fractured identity: ‘Sometimes I feel like
I have had four children, Vince,<a href="" name="_GoBack"></a> Stella, Tom, and then
dead Tom. Or in this order: Vince, Tom, Stella, and dead Tom’ (7). Ultimately,
though, her writing is intended, she declares, to be a part of a maternal
letting go, which is not the completion of mourning, but, rather, a form of
acceptance, ‘to give [Tom] the right to his death’ (170), in the way she gives
her elder son his independence as he flies off to spend a year in France. </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Darrieussecq’s novel engages with one of the
most difficult and poignant topics relating to motherhood, but it is in no way
bathetic. Rather, it makes full use of literary techniques and language in
order to explore and express the complexities, the ‘unnarratability’, of a
mother’s traumatic and intimate experience of loss. Indeed, Laurens’s very
outrage on reading the novel tragically attests to the success of
Darrieussecq’s literary experiment. </div>
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<b>Gill Rye<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b>Works cited<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;">Darrieussecq, Marie. <i>Rapport de police: Accusations de plagiat et autres
modes de surveillance de la fiction</i></span><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;">. Paris: P.O.L., 2010.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Laurens, Camille. <i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;"><i>Philippe</i></span><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;">. Paris:
P.O.L., 1995.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;">----. ‘Marie Darrieussecq ou le syndrome du coucou’. <i>La Revue Littéraire</i></span><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;">. (Autumn 2007).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;"><b>See also:<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<span lang="FR">Rye, Gill. ‘</span>No
Dialogue? Mothers and Mothering in the Work of Marie Darrieussecq’. In Marie
Darrieussecq. Ed. Helena Chadderton
and Gill Rye. Special issue of Dalhousie French Studies 98. (Spring 2012).<br />
<br />
Trout, Colette.
‘From Le bébé to Tom est mort: Writing the Unspeakable Terror of Motherhood’.
In Marie Darrieussecq. Ed. Helena Chadderton and Gill Rye. Special issue
of Dalhousie French Studies 98.
(Spring 2012).<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01664165744232621567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569002993319817123.post-90962922292117494082013-09-20T05:15:00.001-07:002013-09-20T05:15:12.377-07:00AHRC research project: 'Beyond the Gene', led by one of our network members Clare Hanson<div>
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<a href="http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/News-and-Events/Features/Pages/Beyond-the-gene.aspx">http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/News-and-Events/Features/Pages/Beyond-the-gene.aspx</a><br />
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Feature</h1>
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<span>Beyond the gene</span></h2>
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A project is bringing together researchers from the
humanities and the sciences to examine a potentially world-changing new area of
study.</div>
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Genetics holds a special place in the popular
imagination. Even for those with only a passing acquaintance with the
intricacies of DNA, the gene has become an integral part of public discourse on
issues of identity and inheritance, fuelling fierce debates over racial and
gender determinism, and promising medical breakthroughs. </div>
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What is epigenetics?</h2>
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Epigenetics literally means ‘above the genome’.
Professor Karen Temple uses a neat analogy to explain the difference between
epigenetics and genetic study: “When you want to fill a room with light, you
look at your lightbulb and check that it’s working – that is analogous to doing
genetic study to look at whether the DNA is formed directly. But in turning the
light on, you also have to have the switch on. Effectively, epigenetics is the
switching mechanism, and whether the wires are right, whether the actual switch
is pressed on or not.”</div>
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So what happens when a relatively new scientific field
threatens to force a rethink of this genetic paradigm that has dominated
twentieth century thinking? This is the focus of Southampton University’s recent
cross-disciplinary project. Funded by an exploratory grant from the AHRC, Beyond
the Gene brings together researchers from the humanities and the sciences to
examine the cultural and social implications of a potentially world-changing
science: epigenetics. </div>
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On a simple level, epigenetics is the study of
biological processes that can switch genes on and off, producing changes in gene
activity without altering the DNA structure. Some of these changes may even be
passed through generations. If we’ve become used to thinking of our genes as a
fixed blueprint, epigenetics shows that the process of human development is in
fact more dynamic – and more open to environmental influences. </div>
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“Epigenetics makes it all so interesting, biologically
speaking, because it means that the environment in which you’re growing up might
be just as important as the genes that you’ve got,” explains research team
member Professor Karen Temple, Professor of Medical Genetics and clinician.
Research has uncovered epigenetic causes of certain rare diseases, and as
technology develops, epigenetics may well come to explain more common
conditions, including some cancers.</div>
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Professor Clare
Hanson<img alt="Professor Clare Hanson" height="447" src="http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/News-and-Events/Features/PublishingImages/Other/other-clarehanson.jpg" style="height: 238px; margin: 5px; width: 178px;" width="241" /><br />
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Through workshops, discussion groups and public events,
Beyond the Gene allows participants from a wide range of disciplines, academic
methodologies and backgrounds to share their work and perspectives on this new
science. What has emerged so far is that the cultural implications are
considerable. “There’s a massive story here in terms of the implications of
unraveling the notion of the power of genetic inheritance,” says Professor Clare
Hanson, Principal Investigator on Beyond the Gene and member of Southampton’s
Humanities faculty. “What are families bound by, if there are looser biological
family ties?” </div>
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Looking at recent adoption memoirs by writers including
Jackie Kay, AM Holmes and Jeanette Winterson as part of the project, Hanson has
already found indications of a cultural shift away from the dominance of the
gene. “Writers are picking up on the altering of the angle of vision, the focus
on environment and the attenuating of the explanatory power of the gene,” argues
Hanson. “So it’s a much more diffused, complex and holistic picture of how we
come to be who we are.” Indeed, Jeanette Winterson was a speaker at a public
event organised by the project, as well as noted scientist and professor of
science Evelyn Fox-Keller.</div>
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In terms of the potential social impact, an important
theme is the role of the environment in human development. “One of the key
things we are talking about is that epigenetics takes you away from the emphasis
on the individual, which is so characteristic of the focus on the gene, and it
draws attention to the power of the environment that we collectively make,
affecting the health, development and qualities of future generations,” says
Hanson. </div>
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Given the potential social and cultural ramifications
of epigenetics, managing public understanding is of great importance. The Beyond
the Gene project looks at how scientists and those in the humanities can work
together to avoid media misunderstandings and hysterical headlines. “I think
epigenetics may be very important in deciding issues such as cancer risk,
chronic disease risk and obesity. It could be something that really does get
taken up by the public, but you want this to happen in a sensible way, rather
than as something too simplistic,” says Temple. “Scientists who are trying to
explain their work have got a huge amount to learn from the humanities.”</div>
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Bringing together academics and artists from such
different disciplines is not without challenges. “The main problem is one of
vocabulary. What do we understand when we say things to each other and how do we
open up what is meant?” points out poet and artist Allen Fisher, who contributed
a paper to one of the project’s workshops. Fisher, who has a longstanding
interest in science, explains that when it comes to presenting their work, many
of the scientists he encounters are naturally more interested in data and
communication than in aesthetic judgment. </div>
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Promoting intellectual exchange and mutual
understanding is key: “The artists need to understand what is meant by
epigenetics, what is beyond the gene, and reciprocally, the scientists need to
understand that data and communication isn’t all they can use as their process,”
says Fisher. One of the main strands of the project involves looking at the ways
in which humanities can contribute to creating new metaphors to aid public
understanding of scientific advances. “What unites people in science and the
humanities is that we’re interested in metaphors and narratives,” says Hanson.
“There are lots of narratives and metaphors in science – it’s the easy way to
paint the picture.”</div>
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Temple is keen to point out epigenetic studies do not
imply the gene is redundant. “The gene really does matter. It is a code that
starts the process off,” she says. “But we have this image of the gene of being
the master controller, and it’s not like that; it’s one little component in the
whole process.” Just how much epigenetics will ultimately contribute to medicine
and society will depend on advances in technology. However, Temple predicts:
“Epigenetics is here to stay.”</div>
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Article by Hannah Davies</div>
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<strong>Feature Description: </strong><br />
<strong>Date: </strong>09/09/2013</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01664165744232621567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569002993319817123.post-14148173815994719592013-09-13T05:18:00.001-07:002013-09-13T05:18:30.684-07:00New exhibition: 'Home Truths: Photography, Motherhood and Identity' at the Photographer's Gallery and the Foundling Museum in London <div class="page-type">
ART NEWS<span class="tags"> </span></div>
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<span class="tags"><a href="http://www.artlyst.com/articles/motherhood-and-identity-is-explored-in-new-photographers-gallery-exhibition">http://www.artlyst.com/articles/motherhood-and-identity-is-explored-in-new-photographers-gallery-exhibition</a></span></div>
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<img alt="Motherhood and Identity Is Explored In New Photographer's Gallery Exhibition - ArtLyst Article image" src="http://www.artlyst.com/img/articles/4756.jpg" title="Motherhood and Identity Is Explored In New Photographer's Gallery Exhibition" /> </div>
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Motherhood and Identity Is Explored In New Photographer's Gallery Exhibition</h1>
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DATE: 17 JUL 2013</div>
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<strong>The Photographers’ Gallery is presenting Home Truths: Photography, Motherhood and Identity, an exhibition exploring representations of motherhood through the works of eight contemporary artists. The exhibition will aim to challenge long-held stereotypes and sentimental views of motherhood by addressing issues such as gender roles, domesticity, the body and the identity of individuals within the family unit. The work of the eight artists tends to be autobiographical in focus and sits within the documentary genre. Large in both scale and scope, many of the projects span over several years with some still ongoing. Home Truths is curated by Susan Bright.</strong><br /><br />The eight artists and projects taking part in the exhibition are:<br /><br />Janine Antoni (b. 1964, Bahamas) has, for many years, explored the role of mothering through her relationship with her own mother and subsequently her daughter. In Inhabit (2009) we see Antoni suspended in mid-air wearing a dress designed as a house. The photograph is part of a performance piece in which, over the course of five hours, a spider slowly begins to weave its web inside the rooms of the house. The spider stands for Antoni’s daughter while she is the supporting structure it needs for its web.Inhabit, and other images in the series, reflect on the complex role of the mother requiring her to be flexible yet reassuringly constant, a dominating presence but one that is able to provide for the space needed for her child to grow.<br /><br />In her series the Annunciation Elina Brotherus (b. 1972, Finland) records herself through years of failed IVF treatments. Full of art historical references, Brotherus’ images stand in sharp contrast to the traditional scenes and symbolism of Annunciation paintings. While the Virgin Mary receives the news that she is to give birth to the son of God, Brotherus pictures herself month after month in-front of a succession of negative pregnancy tests. Feelings of elation and abundance are replaced with those of sorrow and loss. Brotherus’ photographs question the term ‘mother’, suggesting that it can stem from intention rather than being bound to biology or the physical act of having a child.<br /><br />In Elinor Carucci’s (b. 1971, Israel) series Mother (2004-2013) we see the artist, known for her intimate portraits of her family, extend her practice by working with her children. Through her photographs Carucci expresses her fears of motherhood – that it would result in the loss of her creativity and sense of identity. What she discovered however, were new layers of depth and intensity within herself and her work. Carucci confronts viewers with candid depictions of motherhood - from her changing body to moments of annoyance, frustration and exhaustion but also those of great joy and tenderness.<br /><br />Ana Casas Broda’s (b. 1965, Spain) desire to have children was intense. She spent five years in fertility treatments before she was able to conceive her first son. With the birth of her second son she began exploring motherhood through photography and writing. For Casas Broda having children triggered memories and fears from her own childhood which exacerbated her post-partum depression. Using photography as a form of therapy, she was able to work through these dark periods and come to terms with her past. A selection of twenty-five images from this project, titled Kinderwunsch (2006 - 2013), is to go on display. Focusing on Casas Broda’s games with her sons, the photographs depict a series of complex interactions between the childrens’ developing identities and her own profound transformations.<br /><br />Fred Hüning’s (b. 1966 Germany) work is comprised of a diaristic trilogy of books, Einer (2010), Zwei(2011) and Drei (2011). Starting in 2005, the books document, in a non-linear way, Hüning and his wife’s journey of love and loss as reflected in everyday moments alongside extraordinary and tragic family events. Einer tells the story of the birth and death of their first child and the struggle which followed as they try and cope with their loss. Zwei shows the couple’s healing process as they attempt to rebuild their relationship and Hüning’s wife discovers she is pregnant again. Drei is a celebration of life and love as the family is made whole again by the arrival of their second son.<br /><br />Leigh Ledare’s (b. 1976, USA) project Pretend You’re Actually Alive (2002 -2008) is largely comprised of explicit photographs of his mother, Tina Peterson, interspersed with ephemera. The project, which was originally conceived as a book, will be presented as a series of seventeen images. Once a ballerina and model, Peterson later worked in amateur pornography. Her sexually aggressive behavior, combined with her fragile psyche, was the catalyst for collaboration between her and Ledare. The work results in a safe environment in which they are able to explore slippages of Peterson’s identity as well as confound and question conventional boundaries, ethical lines and taboos associated with mother/son relationships. It is a complex investigation into authorship, subjectivity, performance and portraiture which acutely undermines stereotypical attitudes towards the mother figure.<br /><br />Katie Murray’s (b.1974, USA) video performance Gazelle showcases the artist as she tests her limits of endurance during a workout session. Following the birth of her second child Murray attempted to lose weight by using the Gazelle – Total Body Workout Exercise Machine. Frustrated by her family’s constant interruptions she began exercising with her two children strapped to her back and front. Serving as a running commentary is the voice of Tony Little, “America’s Personal Trainer”, blaring out sexist motivational clichés. The video is intercepted with nature footage of a mother gazelle suckling her young and escaping an attack by a pair of young cheetah cubs. Murray’s piece is a metaphor for her failed attempts at balancing the demands of a wife, mother and artist all at the same time.<br /><br />Hanna Putz’s (b. 1987, Austria) photographs raise questions about today’s surfeit of images and the need to perform for the camera in an age of social networking and permanent surveillance. By photographing young mothers and their babies she aims to create a feeling of intimacy and closeness, but without exposing anyone. The mother, solely focused on her child, is oblivious to the camera’s presence and unconcerned about ‘posing’ for it. Composition and colour are of great importance to Putz, adding a layer of anonymity to her subjects by transforming them into sculptural forms.<br /><br />Susan Bright said: The work in this exhibition is at times subtle, at times bold. Highly subjective, it can also be contradictory. It displays a sense of seriousness and intense reflection, often with a haunting quality. It has the ability to move, but also to question and disrupt assumptions without being judgmental. Like photography itself, the expectations and demands of motherhood are in flux; both subject and medium grapple for new meaning in a changing world. My hope is that the work featured here will open up debates about the continued representation and place of the mother figure, while raising questions about the identity and display of photography at this pivotal moment in which we find ourselves – at a crossroads between the singular photographic object and the sprawling nature of the networked image. <br /><br />Home Truths is a collaboration with the Foundling Museum, London and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago. The exhibition is showing across the two London institutions, with artists at the Gallery addressing issues of motherhood and identity and those at the Foundling Museum considering motherhood and loss. Both exhibitions are curated by Susan Bright. Artists showing work at the Museum are Ann Fessler (b. 1950, USA), Tierney Gearon (b. 1963, USA), Miyako Ishiuchi (b. 1947, Japan) and Annu Palakunnathu Matthew (b. 1964, Britain).<br /><br />Following its display at The Photographers’ Gallery Home Truths: Photography, Motherhood and Identity will tour to the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago (MoCP) where it will be exhibited from 25 April - 13 July 2014. The exhibition will be accompanied by a major publication published by The Photographers’ Gallery, Art / Books, The Foundling Museum and The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago.<br />
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<strong>Hanna Putz Untitled, (LL1), 2012 42 cm x 60 cm © Hanna Putz <br />Courtesy of the artist</strong></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01664165744232621567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569002993319817123.post-5955691267503177642013-08-30T09:41:00.000-07:002013-08-30T09:41:46.895-07:00Reflections on Parenting in Global Perspective: Negotiating Ideologies of Kinship, Self and Politics (ed. Charlotte Faircloth, Diane M. Hoffman and Linda L. Layne), by Gill Rye
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Parenting in Global Perspective: Negotiating Ideologies of Kinship,
Self and Politics</i>, ed. Charlotte Faircloth, Diane M. Hoffman and Linda L.
Layne (London and New York: Routledge, 2013)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is not so much a critical review of what is a
cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural volume on motherhood (and parenthood more
widely) as a comparative reflection on a project which would seem to have some
similarity, in terms of themes and aims, with the work of the Motherhood in
post-1968 European Literature Network. My reflections on this volume also lead
to reflections on our own network project and forthcoming publications.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">First, though, a brief description of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Parenting in Global Perspective </i>collection
of essays. The book’s fourteen chapters are divided into four parts – The moral
context for parenting; The structural constraints to ‘good’ parenting; Negotiating
parenting culture; and Parenting and/as identity – and there is a substantial
editors’ introduction, plus a Foreword (Frank Furedi) and an Afterword (Ellie
Lee). The contributors took part in a workshop at the University of Kent, where
contributions to the volume and associated methodologies were presented and
discussed. The academic field for the publication is identified as ‘parenting
culture studies’ and the project’s overall aim is to ‘foreground the experience
of parents as agents, recognising the important but neglected transformations
that affect them as situated within networks of kinship, material culture,
ideology and beyond’ (xviii). It involves researchers from both anthropology
and sociology, and takes in parenting situations from a wide range of national
and cultural contexts, from the UK and Europe to the US and South America,
including migrant, refugee and other transnational issues. Although the
declared focus is on parenting, and the volume includes some discussion of
fathers, here, as elsewhere, ‘the topic of “parenting” […] [often] euphemises
what is really “mothering”’ (54), and the majority of chapters are devoted to
the experiences of mothers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The editors’ introduction sets out a series of research
questions for the volume, relating to the ways in which parenting in the
contemporary era is constructed through the discourses of various child-development
experts, what kinds of cultural assumptions and authoritative claims are made
by them and what kinds of parents they produce, as well as how parents
themselves negotiate and experience expectations about their parenting. These
questions are also linked into constructions of the self, kinship and political
relations, and how they affect the construction of gender, race, social class,
and nation. The individual essays are linked by means of the theoretical
concept of intensive parenting, largely drawn from sociologist Sharon Hays’s
work on the ideology of ‘intensive mothering’ in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood </i>(1996), a concept and
practice which, it is argued, is permeating internationally, and all the essays
make explicit reference to this text, albeit sometimes somewhat tangentially.
Another key concept (and text) for the collection is Frank Furedi’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Paranoid Parenting</i> (2001), in relation
to parents’ sensitivity to discourses of risk and to political trends ‘where
parenting is increasingly understood as both the source of, and solution to, a
whole host of social problems’ (1-2). The volume demonstrates a tension between
commonalities in discourse, structure and experience, and a range of cultural,
regional and individual specificities. Indeed, rather than being part of ‘the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">new</i> “parenting” culture’ in global terms
(1; my emphasis), the concept of intensive mothering actually seems to grow out
of and be in dialogue with specific historical and cultural ideologies: for
example, in Chile, intensive mothering is seen in policy discourse as a path to
upward mobility for families, but also fits in with traditional Chilean notions
of mothering; in Spain, the child-centred values of contemporary intensive
mothering echo the self-sacrificing notions of motherhood from Catholicism and
Francoism; likewise, the notion of motherhood as sacrifice is a traditional
ideal in Turkey. Plenty of examples of resistance to and creative negotiations
with the concept are evident: such as Dominican migrants in Madrid defining
themselves against the traditional Spanish model; Sudanese refugees in the US
modifying American concepts of child-centred parenting to maintain links with
their traditional culture and ethnic identity; and many of the parents in the
case studies seem to identify themselves against the mainstream. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Successful interdisciplinary work is stimulating but always
challenging; even more so when it also crosses cultures. Notions of methodology
and evidence, as well as cultural specificities, can disrupt discussion and
limit outcomes. As in our own work in the Motherhood in post-1968 European
Literature Network, which works across disciplines and cultures, the variables
here are immense. The concept of intensive parenting is, therefore, used as a
cohering principle for the broad-based set of contexts discussed in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Parenting in a Global Perspective </i>collection.
In our own network, the focus on Europe is designed to fulfil a similar
function, especially since – within the EU at least – so many policy decisions
affecting families and parents are made at European level. And our emphasis on
European literature is designed to demonstrate that literary texts can offer
valid and valuable insights within multi-discipline studies on motherhood. In
both projects, a rich comparative forum has been produced, although, in the
book, there is a certain sense of ‘randomness’ about what contexts, situations
and case studies are included. Projects such as this are, however, dependent on,
and grow out of, what scholars are working on – and, importantly, on what they
can get funding to work on – at any one time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">My thoughts as I read through this book turned to how to produce
useful publications from the discussions we have had at our five workshops held
in 2012 and 2013, and will have at the forthcoming conference in October 2013. In
this book, Lee concludes in her Afterword that the project has produced a
series of alternatives rather than counter-narratives on parenting and has
probably raised more questions than it has answered, while opening up new areas
for research. This in itself is a highly successful and valuable contribution
of course but, even while we plan a series of journal special issues and
sections drawn from our workshops, we must not forget that, as Furedi suggests
in his Foreword to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Parenting in
Global Perspectives </i>volume, the cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural
conversations we have had at our events are extremely valuable in themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Podcasts from the workshops are available on the Network
website at </span><a href="http://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/research-fellowships/ahrc-motherhood-post-1968-european-literature-network/podcasts"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">http://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/research-fellowships/ahrc-motherhood-post-1968-european-literature-network/podcasts</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
. Please continue these conversations on this blog. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We are always open to suggestions for ways in which the
Network can continue to contribute to debates on motherhood in Europe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Gill Rye<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">August 2013<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01664165744232621567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569002993319817123.post-23885965535142394602013-07-26T07:25:00.000-07:002013-07-26T07:26:48.491-07:00Maternity as Subversion or Subjugation?: The Double-Edged Maternal Narrative in 17 filles, by Julie Rodgers<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AefD1eQ4MRE/UfKF9o9qegI/AAAAAAAAAAw/CqRp8FFUxZ0/s1600/picture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AefD1eQ4MRE/UfKF9o9qegI/AAAAAAAAAAw/CqRp8FFUxZ0/s320/picture.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">1. The
pregnancy pact<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">17 filles</span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">
(2011) marks the first feature of French directing duo and sisters, Delphine
and Muriel Colin. The plot is inspired by a real-life event that took place in
a Gloucester (Massachusetts) high school in 2008 and which saw 18 teenage girls
commit to a ‘pregnancy pact’ with the aim of conceiving almost simultaneously.
In the case of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">17 filles</i>, the
narrative is transposed to the sleepy seaport of Lorient in Southwest Brittany,
a town razed to the ground by Allied bombings during the Second World War and later
rebuilt in a rather austere and industrial architectural style. Lorient is
depicted in the film as a town that is in decline with the dream of prosperity
once promised by its reconstruction now far behind it. It is against this
background of decrepitude and paralysis that a group of 17 fresh-faced and
energetic lycéennes decide to take hold of their future and literally breathe
life back into the staleness of their surrounding environment through procreation,
much to the outrage of their parents and teachers. Reviews of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">17 filles</i> approach the film from a
number of interesting perspectives: the invigorating nature of the narrative
and the ability of youth to shake up a society that has become stagnant; the
awkward transition from childhood into adulthood (not only are there 17 girls,
the majority are aged 17 and thus positioned at the liminal stage of ‘no longer
child but not yet adult’); and, finally, the feminist potential of the film in
that it depicts a reclaiming of the female body by its subject. While the theme
of maternity is, of course, signposted in these reviews (it is unavoidable), I
feel that, perhaps due to its self-evident presence in the narrative, it has
not been fully probed. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">17 filles</i>,
despite its surface simplicity offers quite a complex and, at times,
contradictory reflection on motherhood in contemporary Western culture. This
discussion will focus on the ambivalent treatment of maternity which, for me,
is at the heart of the film. I will argue that while an initial response to
this film may be to read the act of becoming a mother as one that has capacity
to be subversive, on closer analysis it becomes clear that the maternal
narrative offered by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">17 filles</i> is
actually one that corresponds quite closely to the patriarchal master narrative
of motherhood, a trajectory that is rendered even more pernicious here in that
is presented as a act of free choice when, in fact, it is deeply coercive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">A
subversive maternity?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Before
illustrating the more prescriptive and, in parts, retreatist nature of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">17 filles</i>, I will examine what it is
about this film that leads critics and spectators to view it as revitalising
and rebellious in terms of its maternal discourse. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">First
of all, and this is perhaps where the feminist argument is strongest, in a
similar vein to differentialist thinkers such as Irigaray, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">17 filles</i> depicts the maternal as something that imbues women with
power. There is very little that the adults, despite their utmost
determination, can do to reverse the situation, for French law states that no
minor may be forced into having an abortion against her will. There is a sense
of awe surrounding these pregnant teenagers who strut around the lycée with
their bumps on display as fellow classmates, in particular the boys, gasp, but
more out of reverence than horror. Indeed, Camille, the first girl to fall
pregnant, is presented as a ‘leader’ of sorts whose followers increase in
numbers on a daily basis. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Secondly,
the film seems keen to present the pregnancies as a reclaiming of the female
body. In an opening scene, the girls are shown in their underwear outside a
classroom in a corridor of their lycée, each awaiting to undergo an individual
medical examination during which their bodies will be measured and scrutinized.
In another scene, we see them jogging and being timed, many of them doing so
against their will given that they escape to the beach and hide there for part
of the run. If, then,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the school is a
place where the girls’ bodies are monitored and regulated,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it is when they are outside of its confines
that the girls lay claim to their corporeality and inscribe their ownership on
the body by deliberately seeking impregnation. The pregnant body is
subsequently returned to the lycée where its heavy, swollen contours stand in
stark contrast to the slim, lithe and rigorously disciplined female bodies supervised
by the school authorities at the beginning of the film. The pregnant shape,
therefore, becomes in and of itself a threat to the order of the lycée. The
latter is illustrated in the scene of the class photo where the photographer is
clearly uncomfortable with all these pregnant teenagers and doesn’t know how to
position them in the shot, or, more specifically, hide their protruding
bellies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">This
reclaiming of the female body through the maternal in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">17 filles</i> extends well beyond the rebellious act of getting
pregnant and into the full duration of the pregnancy itself via the girls’
transgressive behaviour throughout. When pregnant, the girls pay no heed to the
rules and regulations of how to conduct oneself ‘properly’ while carrying a
child as dictated by the master narrative. The girls are frequently seen
smoking, consuming alcohol and partaking in vigorous and, at times, dangerous
physical activities – for example, kicking around a burning football and
recklessly diving into a swimming pool. The latter incident is particularly
revelatory of the control that they retain over their bodies when pregnant as
it takes place during a prenatal swimming class where, at first, all their
movements are being closely monitored by an instructor. They are navigating the
pool slowly and gently when all of a sudden another of the pregnant girls jumps
in jubilantly from the edges and once again the order that the adults/authorities
have tried to maintain has been dismantled. It is also important to mention in
relation to this new-found control that the girls gain over their bodies during
pregnancy (which, I should add, is most often seen as a time when the female
body is ‘out of control’, thus this a further subversion of the master
narrative of maternity) that the girls continue to position themselves as
sexual beings throughout the duration of their pregnancy and remain confident
in their ability to arouse sexual interest (evident in the various party
scenes). In this respect, the traditional notion of the pregnant woman as both
asexual and sexually out of bounds is reversed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Perhaps
the most subversive and progressive aspect of the maternal narrative in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">17 filles</i>, however, stems from the
girls’ dream of an alternative form of mothering outside of the nuclear familar
which emerges during one of their many chats together as a group. Their vision
is founded on an all-female community where mothering would occur as a shared
activity, among friends, duties would be divided out evenly so that each member
could still retain a certain amount of personal freedom, and there would be no
rules or regulations dictating how they mother. This concept of a maternal
utopia where women take charge of their own mothering is further supported by
the absence of any father figures in the film. In the few instances where we know
who the father is, it is clear that he will not be involved (and this is the
girls’ wish) in the raising of the child. The teenage boys function as little
more than sperm donors in the film, with one of them even being paid 50 euro to
do ‘do the deed’ (in the case of Clémentine, the last of the girls to get
pregnant). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Within
this vision of a maternal utopia presented by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">17 filles</i> is the question of young mothering. At one point in the
film, one of the girls states triumphantly that they will be better mothers
because the generation gap between them and their offspring will be greatly
reduced, hence they will understand their children better. This proclamation, I
feel, incites us to reflect on the master narrative of motherhood and how it
positions maternity at a specific time in a woman’s life: after school and
after marriage. The girls in this film subvert the ‘natural’ order: they will
have children before they have finished their schooling (they will return after
the birth) and without marriage, without any man at all in fact. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">17 filles</i>, therefore, proposes not only
an alternative type of mothering (one that takes place within a community of
women and which does not need any prescribed rules and regulations), it also
questions why, as a society, we are so compelled to contain motherhood within a
very restrictive life trajectory, deeming maternity that occurs outside its established
slot (whether that be too early or too late) aberrant and disruptive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The
maternal narrative as subjugation<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Reading
the maternal narrative in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">17 filles</i>
as one that has the potential to subvert societal norms concerning motherhood
and liberate women and their bodies, however, is very much the initial, surface
interpretation. Further probing reveals that the representation of maternity in
the film corresponds just as much, if not more so, to the master narrative of
motherhood from which it purportedly deviates. Throughout the film, a number of
maternal myths are perpetuated which are deleterious to an authentic experience
of mothering.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">First
and foremost, it is impossible to deny the glamorisation of the pregnant body
that occurs in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">17 filles</i>. All the
girls are conventionally attractive to the extent that a reviewer for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Le Monde</i> remarked ‘le casting a exclu
les disgracieuses’. The camera repeatedly focuses on the girls’ bumps,
fetishizing them and their neat protrusion from an otherwise slender body. The
girls incarnate, therefore, the perfect pregnant body so often encountered on
the cover of women’s magazines but which is almost impossible to achieve and places
immense pressure on women whose pregnant forms do not adhere to this
unreachable ideal. Not only is pregnancy depicted as a state of glowing health
and beauty, it is also presented to the spectator, for the most part, as an
entirely unproblematic biological event. The girls appear to sail through their
pregnancies with very little difficulty apart from one instance of mild
disinterest in food. Any medical issues that do arise (a problem with the
placenta and light bleeding) are quickly resolved and the pregnancy resumes its
normal course. The risk of sexually transmitted diseases is equally brushed
aside, with only one character making any reference to it whatsoever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Even
more pernicious than the glorification of the physical state of pregnancy in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">17 filles</i> are the various problematic
socio-political messages concerning maternity disseminated (probably unconsciously
but this shows the extent to which they have been internalised) by the film.
Becoming a mother is presented as a means of acquiring status in society (for
example, the girls are aware of the number of social benefits that they will
receive). Although the girls do not turn their back on their education entirely
(they all intend to return to the lycée after giving birth), they see maternity
as a more direct route to personal fulfilment, recognition, and money! More
subtly but much more insidiously, maternity emerges not only as means of
improving the girls’ lives, it is also imbued with the potential to rescue its
surroundings (Lorient) from an obvious economic and social downturn. Throughout
the film, shots of the town suggest degeneration and discontent among its
inhabitants. Juxtaposed against this are the scenes of the sea which are full
of vigour, joy and possibility. It is interesting to note that in French the
words for sea (la mer) and mother (la mère) are homophones. Subsequently, I
believe that in the same way that the sea (la mer) serves as a place of escape
from the grimness of Lorient, so too maternity (la mère) is posited as a ‘life-line’
of sorts for this town in economic and social decline and the pregnant girls
are revered as its saviours. The girls then, unbeknownst to them, are being
drawn into the socio-political discourse that turns to maternity for
rejuvenation in times of economic deflation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Furthermore,
although <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">17 filles</i> is keen to present
these multiple pregnancies as a choice (except in the case of the ringleader,
Camille, whose pregnancy is the result of a condom accident), to what extent
can these girls really make their own minds up about having a baby when they
know very little about the actual facts of the event? This lack of knowledge
concerning maternity is evident in several scenes throughout the film: when
they ask the pharmacist if they can share a pregnancy testing kit; when they
discuss the foetus and display amazement at the information they read concerning
its development; and finally, when some of the girls both giggle and squirm at
the video portraying a real-life birth shown by the headmaster at the school in
a bid to halt the ‘pregnancy pact’. As a result, it becomes disputable as to
whether we can actually state that these girls are reclaiming their bodies and
freely choosing to be mothers when they know very little about how pregnancy
unfolds. It could be argued that women are deliberately misinformed/deprived of
information by society in a bid to coerce them more readily into motherhood.
Certainly, in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">17 filles</i>, the girls’
ignorance, albeit a source of much of the humour in the film, is disturbing
given the serious impact on their lives of the decision that they have made.
Alongside this is the fact that we are never really offered any clear reason as
to why they want to have a baby. We can surmise as to their motivations
(rebellion, desire for fulfilment etc) but nothing is ever confirmed. Given,
therefore, that the girls don’t even seem to know why they want to become
mothers, nor do they possess much practical information about the experience, I
feel that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">17 filles</i> (again unconsciously)
raises the question of how much real choice women actually have when it comes
to maternity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">In
conjunction with this lack of choice is a threat to the woman as individual
brought about by the institution of motherhood. Granted, the girls in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">17 filles</i> are never positioned as
individuals even in the pre-motherhood state. On the contrary, they are most
often found in gangs and there is little detail to distinguish one from the
other (their bedrooms, for example, usually a haven for personal expression as
a teenager, are almost identical). However, this lack of individuality
disintegrates even further when they become pregnant. More and more they travel
around in what can only be described as a maternal tribe and, at times, when
the camera focuses on their bumps, it is difficult to discern which belly
belongs to whom. Of course, this ‘maternal tribe’ could be heralded as an
alternative form of mothering outside of the master narrative, but it comes, it
would seem, at the expense of the individual. The version of motherhood,
therefore, that we are presented with in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">17
filles</i> is one where everyone ascribes to the same model and there is no
place deviance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">This
leads me to my final point which, for me, is the most oppressive aspect of the
representation of maternity in the film - there is no tolerance of ambivalence
in motherhood. As stated above, the girls seem to sail through pregnancy
without any real doubts or fears and abortion is not a option for any of them.
It is highly unrealistic to portray 17 pregnant teenagers who all embrace the
idea of young motherhood so unproblematically. Alongside this is the chastising
of mothers who display any ambivalent feelings towards their children, for
example, Camille’s (the protagonist) mother. The latter is a single mother who
has to work long hours in order to provide for her family. She is shown to be
in conflict with her maternal status and it is clear that she struggles to
negotiate her own personal desires with her responsibilities in the home. Due to
her ambivalence, Camille’s mother is represented to the viewer as a ‘bad’
mother, one who is selfish and neglectful. The viewer is encouraged to
empathise with Camille, especially in a early scene when she is depicted alone
at home, assuming the maternal role by preparing dinner only to have her actual
mother return from work and announce that she is going out to socialise,
abandoning her daughter once again. Throughout the film, Camille repeatedly
asserts that she will be a ‘better’ mother and devote herself to her child,
thus perpetuating the notion that there is only one way to be a ‘good’ mother
and that women who do not abide by this norm (namely, Camille’s mothers) are
inevitably ‘bad’ mothers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">This
non-tolerance of ambivalent <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>mothers in
the film also extends to non-mothers. Motherhood is depicted as a kind of
‘cult’ or ‘in’ group and those who do not adhere to its model are branded
deviant. An example of this is the character of Florence. A loner at school,
Florence desperately wants to fit in and thus feigns pregnancy in order to be
accepted by the other girls. As soon as her deceit is discovered, however, she
is callously cast aside and branded a traitor. The choice of the word traitor
is charged with meaning. For me it suggests that motherhood is seen as the
natural state for a woman and that Florence, by failing to join in with the
pregnancy pact and choosing to stand outside of motherhood, is viewed as an
aberrant female, having betrayed not only other women but also herself and her
supposed ‘core femininity’. The school nurse, another non-mother, finds herself
on the receiving end of a similar dismissal. While during a conversation with
Camille when she tries to encourage the latter to put an end to this pregnancy
pact and dissuade any further girls from entering into it, Camille retorts
viciously that she (the nurse) could never understand their motivation or what
it feels like as she (the nurse) has never had children of her own. What we are
witnessing here is a rejection of the non-mother whose reasoning is relegated
to nonsense because she has no physical experience of being a mother.
Motherhood, therefore, emerges as an institution that is deeply exclusionary
and dismissive of women who do not fall inside its parameters. Again we return
to the question of choice in motherhood. If this is how despicably non-mothers
are treated, do women actually have any real choice in their decision to become
mothers?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Retreatism
or Progression?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">To
conclude this reflection, I will return to the question raised in the title,
that is, to what extent is the version of motherhood presented in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">17 filles</i> one that subverts the master
narrative or one that merely submits to it? Near the middle of the film, an
emergency staff meeting is organised at the lycée in order to deal with the
pregnancy pact that is spiralling out of control. In a discussion that reflects
many of the divisions between postfeminism (anti-feminist) and third wave
feminism (progressive feminism) with regard to women’s behaviour in the
twenty-first century, two distinct responses are forwarded by the teachers. The
first considers the girls’ actions to be regressive, deleterious to their
futures and a resumption of an out-of-date form of femininity that relegates
women to the household and posits motherhood as their ultimate goal in life.
The second, on the other hand, argues to the contrary, stating that the girls
are reclaiming their bodies for themselves and refusing to listen to the diktats
of society on when and how they should become mothers. As this reflection has
illustrated, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">17 fill</i>es does not adopt
a clear-cut stance on the matter. An initial reading leads us to view the film
as refreshing and daring in its depiction of maternity, and there is much to
recommend this interpretation. However, as we strip away the initial layers
of the narrative, it becomes clear that more noxious and manipulative form of
motherhood lurks beneath, one that serves the needs of a patriarchal society rather
than allowing women to take control of their own mothering in the way that the
film initially sets out to achieve. Although the impact of a narrative should
not be reduced to its conclusion alone, it is nonetheless important in the case
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">17 filles</i> to point out that a
return to ‘natural order’ is restored at the end of the film. The idea of a maternal
utopia so fervently discussed by the girls throughout the film has come undone
following the departure of Camille who loses her baby due to car accident. The other
girls subsequently return to their parents’ homes, give birth and resume their
studies. Consequently, their transgression is corrected and any chance of truly
positioning themselves outside of the master narrative of motherhood and
thereby threatening its structures is promptly and, perhaps, inevitably quelled.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01664165744232621567noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569002993319817123.post-32010034556965317682013-07-19T03:42:00.000-07:002013-07-19T03:42:38.635-07:00Report on Workshop 5: Motherhood, Religion and Spirituality, by Indrani Karmakar
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The fifth workshop of the ‘Motherhood
in post 1968 European Literature Network’ was held on 28<sup>th</sup> June. The
objective of the workshop was to explore the connections between motherhood,
religion and spirituality across diverse disciplines (such as anthropology,
literature and religious studies) in order to investigate the various ways ‘religions
are impacting on mothers as individuals and how women as mothers come to
experience it’. The workshop, I believe, has been successful in fulfilling its
aims as the presentations addressed specific research questions and the discussions
yielded different perspectives on this issue. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
Instead of going into the details
of each paper, which might sound like repeating the abstracts, I will try to
focus on some key issues which, I think, the papers highlighted and the
discussions brought forth.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Maternal Body (and Religion):
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Pregnancy, childbirth, lactation:
all these aspects of biological motherhood are of profound significance in feminist
discourse and it has been a contentious issue resulting in both positive and
negative views. Rachel Jones, in her responses after the first plenary
session, indicated this debate around the female body, mentioning feminist
thinkers like de Beauvoir who had rather negative and ambivalent views on
female and/or the maternal body, and also positive accounts of the maternal
body as articulated by thinkers such as Christine Battersby. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Different religions have always had a strong
influence in this area, be it religious interpretations of the female and/or
maternal body, ritualization of childbirth, or different theological discourses
on motherhood. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anna Fedele’s paper was particularly interesting as it explored how the physicalities of
childbirth (which do not really count as emancipating in dominant feminist
conceptions) have been regarded as not only empowering but a sacred experience
on the part of the mother in terms of her own spiritual transformation, by the
members of international Goddess movement. This sacralisation of motherhood, as
the paper rightly argues, has the potential to challenge the dominant feminist
conception of women’s emancipation. However, during the discussion Christine Battersby
raised a very crucial point:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>are we in a
way ‘re-trapping’ ourselves while emphasising the physicalities in this way? I
also think that it has the potential risk of reinforcing traditional ideas of
biological motherhood.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Demystifying/Desacralising Motherhood:
<o:p></o:p></div>
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Quite contrary to the idea of the
sacralised motherhood with the potential of spiritual transformation, is the
darker side of motherhood tinged with confusion, disappointment, and self-effacement.
Julie Rodgers explored and problematized this area in the break-out session
that she facilitated, which focused on an extract from Éliette Abécassis’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Un heureux événement</i> [A Happy Event]. The
extract juxtaposes a practising Jewish mother of ten children, who purportedly considers
her children as her ‘whole life’, with a non-practising, secular mother of one,
quite hesitant and confused with her maternal identity. The group discussed a
number of questions concerning the encounter of these two different women such
as: To what extent is religion influencing these two women’s motherhood as
experience? How is the experience complicated and/or dominated by the
institution? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is, if any, the common
ground of motherhood beyond the religious dictates (e.g. societal factors)? I
particularly liked Sheridan Marshall’s interpretation of the supposed ambiguity
of the word ‘whole life’. Is it a mother’s conscious decision and love to
consider their children as whole life or is her life confined by them? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sheridan’s own paper explored the
connection between motherhood and religion in terms of the disappointment (and also
ambivalence) they both generate. I would like to mention Pauline Eaton’s paper
on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rosie Carpe </i>here, as it, through
the analysis of the novel, depicted how the image of Virgin Mary fails to be the
model for motherhood today. The extract is also very relevant to the
aforementioned issue i.e the maternal body, as it portrays Rosie’s inability to
breastfeed her child and her experience of it. In relation to religion’s influence
on motherhood, I must also mention ‘Limbo’, the text extract presented by Máire
Ní Annracháin in another break-out session, which depicts the extreme agony of a
mother whose child has been buried in the cemetery for unbaptized children. These
poems unravel how religion as an institution impacts on maternal experience
insofar as it can even aggravate and intensify a mother’s pain of losing her
child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
Negotiating Motherhood and
Religion: <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor’s
paper offered important insights into how motherhood can be reshaped by women
as an empowering identity and how it facilitates their religious belief which
has otherwise been misinterpreted by patriarchal scripts. Muslim women in
Britain negotiating their maternal agency and faith lives can be an example of
empowered motherhood which is emancipating for women. Nonetheless, the
potential risk, I think, cannot and should not be ignored that this might be
seen as over-idealised version of motherhood which can be rather detrimental. In
the context of Christianity, Dawn Llewellyn’s paper was interesting as it shows
her research on motherhood and voluntary non-motherhood in connection with
Christian women’s identity.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
Motherhood, Religion and the
Question of Situation:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
Undeniably situation plays a
determining role in the connections between motherhood and religion and its
impact on women. By situation, I mean national context and also the socio-cultural
and economic conditions in which women come to experience both motherhood and
religion. As Mohar Choudhury pointed out while discussing Sariya’s paper: the
idea and practice of empowered mothering based on the foundational Islamic
text experienced by Muslim women in Britain, might not retain its liberating nature in
case of other Muslim women elsewhere (in India, for example, as she said).
Sheridan’s paper on maternal and religious disappointment also shows the
influence of specific national contexts in forming and/or destabilising the
connection between motherhood and religion. The extract taken from the novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Life is a Caravanserai</i> similarly provides
much insight into this issue, portraying the changing time and its influence on
the protagonist whose mother and grandmother represent two generations and two different
sets of beliefs. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
Maternal Ambivalence: <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
The papers and breakout discussions
have shown motherhood to be a site of contestation and a site of
transformation; to add to this, I would say, most of the papers have also shown
motherhood to be a site of profound ambivalence. However, following Rachel Jones
(who refers to Lisa Baraitser with regard to this issue), I would say that this
ambivalence is not always and necessarily negative; rather, it has the
potential to form a maternal subjectivity when a mother can actively reflect
upon this ambivalence. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
In conclusion, returning to the objective of the workshop –
to explore ‘new or re-connections’ with diverse religions thereby enquiring
into the influence they are having on women as mothers<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>– I could say the workshop not only succeeded
in achieving this objective but also moved beyond this with more questions on
and insights into motherhood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01664165744232621567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569002993319817123.post-55745861214972451102013-05-03T04:07:00.001-07:002013-05-03T04:07:59.863-07:00Report on Workshop 4: Motherhood, Migration and Exile, by Marie-Noëlle Huet<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">On April 26<sup>th</sup>, the fourth workshop of the series organized by the Motherhood in post-1968 European Literature Network took place. The aims of the workshop were, “on the one hand, to identify specific problem areas relating to the analysis of motherhood and migration in Europe, asking what kinds of insights literature may offer to the issues raised” and, on the other hand, “to explore positive strategies on the part of migrant or exiled mothers and of researchers who wish to understand and improve their situations.” Considering the different presentations and the many discussions that followed each session, I think we can say we succeeded in achieving the objectives of the event.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">Since the videos of the event will soon be available on the website, I will not summarize the presentations. Rather, I will try to highlight the questions raised by the papers and the discussions that ensued, as well as put forth some of the impressions that lingered in my mind after the event. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">Migration vs. Exile.</span></b><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"> The situation of migrant mothers and mothers in exile is a complex one. As it was shown by the papers from diverse disciplines (communications and media, social anthropology, literature, demography, sociolinguistics and sociology), the concept includes (but is not limited to) mothers leaving their child behind for working abroad (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cf.</i> Mirca Madianou’s presentation), mothers fleeing with their children (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cf.</i> Andrea Hammel’s paper), as well as mothers raising their children in a foreign country and language, sometimes not speaking the adopted language their children are growing up with (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cf.</i> Egle Kackute and Ana Souza’s papers). How do we define migration and exile? Is one phenomenon more permanent or more difficult to cope with than the other? Do both situations have the same implications for and impacts on the mothers and their family? Why do mothers migrate? Some women decide to leave their home country for work, others to study abroad where employment prospects are more promising, or to escape from political instability. However, reasons for migrating are often not only external. As Mirca Madianou’s paper on the case of Filipino migrant mothers exemplified, women are not only leaving the home for financial purposes, they also leave for personal reasons such as gaining more liberty and self-empowerment, fleeing from a dysfunctional couple or family, etc. Who migrates? Letizia Mencarini’s demographical input underlined that women are migrating more than ever before. While it is important to measure the phenomena of migration and fertility to get the larger picture, it is hard (with numbers and graphs) to draw a portrait of the migrants and get to know their stories. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">Identity.</span></b><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"> The concept of identity is central to the questions of motherhood, migration and exile. What defines identity? Ana Souza’s paper showed that for the Brazilian women living in the UK she interviewed, to be Brazilian means being born in Brazil and speaking Brazilian Portuguese. So what becomes of their identity when they move to another country? I particularly liked the idea of the “replanted tree” she referred to. When transplanted in new soil (the metaphor for the adoptive country), the tree, whose roots grew in the native country, continues thriving, absorbing the sun and nutrients of the new environment. It becomes a different tree that might even be stronger since it will have proven to be adaptable. What happens to the identity when in a transitory space? Andrea Hammel’s paper on Julia Franck’s novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lagerfeuer</i> shows that performing the “mothering role” can be challenging in the state of “inbetweenness” that represents the transit camp. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">Ambivalence.</span></b><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"> The good mother/bad mother dichotomy is still very (too) present in the social discourse as the discussions around the papers showed. For instance, the Brazilian mothers from Ana Souza’s study see transmission of Portuguese language to their children as an inherent element of being a “good” mother. The Filipino migrant mothers from Mirca Madianou’s study are in turn considered both heroes (of the Philippines’ economy) and “bad” mothers (because they leave their children behind). Even though the new technologies the Filipino migrant mothers rely on (Skype, text messages, social media, etc.) sometimes increase conflicts and cannot make up for the physical absence, they allow them to practice intensive mothering at a distance (by being virtually present on Skype during the family breakfast for example) while being the breadwinner. Are the characteristics of a good mother in the Philippines the same as the ones of a good/proper mother in Lithuania or the UK? According to Mirca Madianou, they aren’t since she believes motherhood is culturally specific. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">Furthermore, the reference to Nancy Huston’s “dilemme de la romamancière” [dilemma of the novelist mom – or to play on words, the “dilemma of the momvelist”] according to which a “good” mother needs to be selfless since she wants to protect her children so they live and grow, whilst a “good” novelist needs to be selfish because she sometimes has to kill her characters, generated some discussions. As it was said, motherhood doesn’t necessarily imply self-sacrifice. Can we then say that the concept of good mothering or bad mothering is shaped by society’s expectations and normative discourses?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">The voice of the daughter.</span></b><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"> During the discussion following the summaries of the breakout sessions, someone observed that the extracts from literature mainly depicted characters speaking as daughters (and hardly as mothers). It was mentioned that it is still hard to find fiction (and non-fiction) in which the main character (or author) speaks as a mother. While it is true of the texts we were presented with, I don’t think that statement is still completely accurate. I believe that more and more writers (in France at least) write about their experience of motherhood from the mother’s perspective. Karine Reysset, who was invited to the last workshop, is a very good example of that growing “trend”. She came to writing with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">L’innatendue </i>(2003), a journal-like novel (written from notebooks) which focuses on a mother-to-be and on the relationship developing with the baby <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in utero</i>. All of her subsequent novels deal with maternity and motherhood. </span><span lang="FR-CA" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">I am also thinking of Eliette Abécassis’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Un heureux événement </i>(2005) and Marie Darrieussecq’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Le mal de mer </i>(2001)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">, Le bébé </i>(2005) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Le pays</i> (2007) among others. </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">Moreover, a lot of Nancy Huston’s fiction focuses on giving a voice to the mother. Some of the richness of her writing, I find, is actually to give a voice to the daughter, the mother, the lover; all of which roles are played by the same person. Since, as Marianne Hirsch puts it in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Mother-Daughter Plot</i>: “Inasmuch as a mother is simultaneously a daughter and a mother, a woman and a mother, in the house and in the world, powerful and powerless, nurturing and nurtured, dependent and depended upon, maternal discourse is necessarily plural<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6569002993319817123#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">And the father? </span></b><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">This was the second workshop of the series I participated in and I realized (to my surprise) that, besides Katarina Carlshamre’s paper <span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">“New Father, New Mother?”</span> (from Workshop 3)<span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">, there has been no mention of the father in the presentations. I am well aware that since mothers have been silenced for too long a time, it is now essential to hear their voice and let them take the place they deserve in the social discourse. However, we cannot put aside the fact that fathers also play an important role in the family and since they now get more involved in the care and education of the children (in Occidental families at least), it seems unfair that we silence them in return. And like Ana Souza has recognized, not having involved fathers in her study interfered since they played a role in the amount of Portuguese spoken at home and influenced the children’s perception of the foreign language. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-themecolor: text1;">Thanks to new communication technologies, the relative ease with which (some of us) can cross borders, the government policies that encourage migration, the social programs that integrate incoming migrants, there is an increasing number of choices and solutions made available to migrant mothers or mothers in exile. It seems to me though (it is one aspect that stands out from all the presentations) that there is a lack of “models” to turn to. The very fact of leaving one’s home country to start a life somewhere else affects identity. Living abroad thus means having to redefine one’s identity, which can be a painful (yet potentially enriching) process. Can literature, by allowing identification to singular characters and by depicting life’s complexities, offer such models or, more modestly, offer valuable insights that would allow migrant mothers to create their own story away from guilt, vulnerability and ambivalence?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-themecolor: text1;">Please feel free to comment, endorse or criticize my input.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6569002993319817123#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="FR-CA"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="FR-CA" style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: FR-CA; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="FR-CA" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"> </span><span lang="EN-CA" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">Marianne Hirsch, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Mother/Daughter Plot. Narrative, Psychoanalysis, Feminism</i>, Bloomington/Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 1989, p. 196.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01664165744232621567noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569002993319817123.post-39307146287054845542013-04-05T08:09:00.000-07:002013-04-05T08:09:18.628-07:00New title: Incarcerated Mothers: Oppression and Resistence<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
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<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Demeter Press is pleased to announce the release of:</span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Incarcerated Mothers: Oppression and Resistence<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Edited by Gordana Eljdupovic and Rebecca Jaremko Bromwich<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">A large proportion-and in many jurisdictions the majority-of incarcerated women are mothers. Popular attention is often paid to challenges faced by children of incarcerated mothers while incarcerated women themselves often do not "count" as mothers in mainstream discourse. This is the first anthology on incarcerated mothers' experiences that is primarily based on and reflects the Canadian context. It is also transnational in scope as it covers related issues from other countries around the world. These essays examine connections between mothering and incarceration, from analysis of the justice system and policies, criminalization of motherhood, to understanding experiences of mothers in prisons as presented in their own voices. They highlight structures and processes which shape and ascribe incarcerated woman's identity as a mother, juxtaposing it with scripted and imposed mainstream norms of a "good" or "real" mother. Moreover, these essays identify and track emergence of mothers' resistance and agency within and in spite of the confines of their circumstances. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">"This text delves into themes woefully underrepresented in the field. The broad range of articles covered within these pages extends the conversation, probing the very meaning of punishment. The handling of motherhood and mothering behind bars in an international context makes for a vitally necessary text." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">-Jennifer Ann Colanese, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Indiana University South Bend<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">"Incarcerated Mothers offers an all too rare look behind the walls of penal institutions in different countries. While raising a child in India may on the surface be quite different to raising a child in France, the experiences of mothers who are incarcerated are hauntingly similar. This book admirably balances the voices of academia with those of lived experiences. It may indeed be one of the first to demonstrate the intergenerational challenges that so often characterize the families and, above all, children touched by crime. From the perspective of prevention, examining the mother-child relationship is not new. Doing so with women convicted of a crime who are mothers first and foremost demands that we examine the shadow side of justice in an altogether novel way."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">-Christiane Sadeler, Executive Director, Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Rebecca Jaremko Bromwich is a Part-Time Professor at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law and Ph.D. Candidate at Carleton University. A lawyer in private practice for seven years before returning to the academic world, she has been a member of the Bar of Ontario since 2003 and has an Ll.M. and Ll.B. from from Queen's University. Rebecca also has a graduate certificate from the University of Cincinnati, where she taught as an adjunct professor in the Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies. She has also been an adjunct at the University of Western Ontario Faculty of Law. Rebecca balances her professional work and scholarship with her role as mother to four amazing children.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Gordana Eljdupovic, Ph.D., C. Psych., is a clinical and forensic psychologist whose doctoral research focussed on incarcerated women's experiences of mothering. Upon completion of her doctoral degree, she worked with incarcerated women in a Canadian prison for a number of years. She feels immensely privileged, honoured and humbled by their trust. Dr. Eljdupovic has presented her work at a number of different local, regional, and international settings. She is currently an Associate Researcher with the Center for Community Research, Learning and Action (ccrla) at Wilfrid Laurier University, and she continues to work in areas where gender, policy, the justice system, and mental health concerns intersect. She is mother to two wonderful children: a daughter and a son.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">March 2013 / $34.95 pb / ISBN 978-1-927335-03-1 / 6 x 9 / 230 pp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Please visit our website at <a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001rjPnM_ReXgcXvT7kZTqQs0KlytiU6goIIkybX35BbuTEkbT06TZaXIz6shTSTSsqXDUOWDeCzcFgg1OtZP6rERbC_AwkeET6qldyz5Ksdcue9IR7eaQPWTH7IJtSZEBqaG9mG-ETjpKJHRzu_XP1Yw==" shape="rect" target="_blank">http://www.demeterpress.org/incarceratedmothers.html</a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">for details on how to order this new title!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Demeter Press <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">140 Holland St. West, P. O. Box 13022 Bradford, Ontario L3Z 2Y5<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Phone: 905.775.9089 Email: <a href="mailto:info@demeterpress.org">info@demeterpress.org</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01664165744232621567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569002993319817123.post-6676751593052949982013-03-22T09:18:00.003-07:002013-03-22T09:18:57.137-07:00Parenting in Global Perspective: Negotiating Ideologies of Kinship, Self and Politics<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Here's a link to a new edited book - <em>Parenting in Global Perspective: Negotiating Ideologies of Kinship, Self and Politics</em>: </span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415624879/" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415624879/</span></a></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Many of the chapters fit right in with the theme of our next workshop 'Motherhood, Migration and Exile', being held on Friday 26th April. Keep an eye on the website for more details about the workshop:</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://www.igrs.sas.ac.uk/research-fellowships/ahrc-post-1968-motherhood-european-literature-network">http://www.igrs.sas.ac.uk/research-fellowships/ahrc-post-1968-motherhood-european-literature-network</a></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">And please do add any links to other books, articles, films or programmes you think are relevant and interesting. </span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01664165744232621567noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569002993319817123.post-85370857682339244522013-02-15T04:29:00.001-08:002013-02-15T04:29:39.953-08:00Three Millenia of Motherhood<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Here is a link to a Times Literary Supplement review by Emily Wilson of recent studies on motherhood entitled "Three Millenia of Motherhood":</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1163510.ece"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1163510.ece</span></a></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01664165744232621567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569002993319817123.post-65686505688621181512013-02-01T08:41:00.001-08:002013-02-01T08:41:17.764-08:00Report on Workshop 3: Changing Models of Motherhood, by Alice Podkolinski<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; tab-stops: 45.8pt 91.6pt 137.4pt 183.2pt 229.0pt 274.8pt 320.6pt 366.4pt 412.2pt 458.0pt 503.8pt 549.6pt 595.4pt 641.2pt 687.0pt 732.8pt; text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Workshop 3: Changing Models of Motherhood<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Workshop 3 on Changing Models of Motherhood covered a diverse range of disciplines and nationalities. Throughout these varying perspectives it was evident that since 1968 the medical, legislative, and social changes had had considerable impact on experiences of mothering, and were continuing to do so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One principal change that could be traced through all the discussions and papers in the workshop was the increasing number of choices made available to women. These choices primarily seemed liberating. Whether because of developing reproductive technologies or legislative changes, women could choose when to conceive, they could choose when not to conceive, they could choose with whom they wanted to conceive, irrespective of sex, and how; following the birth they could choose whether they went back to work, when and how often. And yet throughout the workshop, the overriding ambivalence towards and questions surrounding changing models of mothering arose from the implications, responsibilities, and guilt these opportunities to choose catalysed. These experiences became particularly conflicted when the “mothering” didn't conform to the oppressively omnipresent, and yet distinctly absent, hetero-normative model of parenting that haunted most of the characters and subjects discussed during the workshop. Claire Williams succinctly concluded the day by observing that our discussions had thrown up many more questions than answers. Following Victoria Browne’s resistance of patrilineal modes of thinking, I am not going to present my report on the workshop chronologically. Instead by way of framing the day, I am going to present just some of the many questions our discussions provoked and the contexts in which they arose:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">At the opening of the workshop in Katarina Carlshamre’s paper on “New Father, New Mother?” we were introduced to the conflict between the legislatively supported ideal of ‘gender-equal parenting’ in Sweden and the reality that 75% of parental leave is taken by mothers. Katarina explored literature which portrayed women struggling with their role as mother; they are women who constantly feel they are failing to embrace their “natural instinct” as carers. It is precisely the notion of this instinct, Katarina argued, that altered the father and mother’s involvement in parenting and the feelings of guilt and desperation that the mothers experienced. Questions following Katarina’s paper revealed that many of the issues British academics were coming across were a result of linguistic categories. Problems surrounding the very definition of “mothering”, “fathering”, and “parenting” varied considerably between cultures and languages.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Is part of our issue symptomatic of the English language and its gender defining semantics of mothering and fathering? Or is the lack of vocabulary to conceptualise beyond the normative model of mothering universal? <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Abigail Lee Six’s paper “Changing Models of Motherhood and Mother-Blame: Plus ça change....” similarly explored these issues of mother guilt, shame and blame. Since motherhood is now considered a choice, the child must be deemed “worth it”. The mother is then considered responsible for how the child turns out. This is a feeling of blame also encountered in Chrissie Rogers’ “Sociological Story about intellectual Disability, mothering and Care Work”. Through her interviews with mothers of intellectually disabled children, Chrissie encounters countless examples of “exclusion narratives” towards mothers. She summarises it as the inhumanity of how we deal with “difficult” differences and uses it to reveal the deficiencies in current educational and health care support for parents with intellectually disabled children. Chrissie suggests we have a system of “Other-ing”, which she defines by its inability to embrace and include “difficult” differences, and so excludes them. Blaming the normative “narrative of mothering”, she identifies a conflict between our expectations and the reality of mothering. This clash appears in multiple discussions throughout the day; the gap between the expectations and the reality of mothering is the location for negative experiences of “non-normative” models of motherhood, but also the space in which we can and should develop new models of mothering and modes of thinking which coincide with these<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Is there such a thing as normative and non-normative mothering?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or is this the result of normative discourses on reproduction and parenting? How can we then discuss so-called “non-normative” models of motherhood without marginalising them? And are changes in models of mothering a result of legislative changes or vice versa?</span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Signe Howell’s paper “The Kinning of the Transnationally Adopted Child in Contemporary Norway” illustrated to us the psychic processes of bringing a child into a family and building familial relationships with them. She describes a transformative process for not just the adoptive parents, but for their immediate family and friends. Using the analogy of a particular midwife who provides pre-adoption courses and uses a discourse acutely similar to that of giving birth when describing the emotional journey of adoption, Signe draws into question the very definitions of kinship and parenting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">What does it mean to mother? Who can mother – is it limited by sex or relation? What about the father? Is it actually a psychic structure rather than biological right? To what extent is parenting an act? Can we create a new act?</span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Jill Armstrong’s summary of the discussion on Rachel Cusk’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Aftermath</i> suggested that public spaces such as parks have become stages for families to perform the parenting skills. This is a performance which becomes further compounded, and necessary, when the parents are divorced. The process of divorce seems to highlight the sense that this performance is an attempt to create “normality”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jill suggested that this concept of “the family” is a relatively new one, and yet its normative model is a highly constricting one. Roberta Guerrina similarly identified the issue of the “norm” in Éliane Girard’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mais qui va garder le chat?</i> The lesbian parenting discussed in the fiction allows a thorough exploration of the experience of “non- normative” models of parenting. The dialogue in the extract discussed revealed the “norm” to be a rigid stone against which all other models of parenting are measured. The characters’ confusions and frustrations arise from the fact that vocabulary and models for conceptualisation don’t exist for the more fluid models of mothering/parenting presented in these texts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">What is this “tyranny of the norm” that all guilt and success is measured against? How are the choices available implicated by this? Or even despite the possibilities provided with reproductive technologies are we doomed to keep replicating old hetero-normative models of parenting?</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">And how does literature contribute to this discussion?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The literature discussed provided a forum to explore the issues beyond the normative and limited discourses surrounding mothering and gender. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our conclusions regarding the use of literature in these discussions resonated strongly with Deleuze’s consideration of literature in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Essays Critical and Clinical</i>:<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">To those who ask what literature is, Virginia Woolf responds: To whom are you speaking of writing? The writer does not speak about it, but is concerned with something else.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6569002993319817123#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">It is precisely this “something else” we encountered in the literature. These encounters sparked discussions which transgressed the borders of the literary, philosophical, political and personal. These transgressions were evident throughout the workshop, but also spilled out into the coffee breaks, and will most certainly continue beyond.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6569002993319817123#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="X-NONE"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="X-NONE" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: X-NONE; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span lang="X-NONE"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Gilles Deleuze, , <u>Essays Critical and Clinical</u>, trans. Daniel W. Smith and Michael A. Greco, (London: Verso, 1998), p. 6</span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01664165744232621567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569002993319817123.post-88891606304139239732012-11-30T02:52:00.003-08:002012-11-30T03:28:49.439-08:00La vie d’une autre femme (2012): Returning working mothers to the homeplace, by Julie Rodgers (French, NUI Maynooth)<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">I have just attended a screening of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La vie d’une autre femme</i> (2012) as part of the annual French Film Festival at the Irish Film Institute (IFI) in Dublin and feel that there is much to discuss in this film in connection to the theme of our most recent workshop in October, namely, Motherhood and Work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La vie d’une autre femme</i> marks the entry of established French actress Sylvie Testud into the domain of directing. Loosely based on the novel by Frédérique Beghelt (2008) similarly entitled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La vie d’une autre</i>, Testud’s film deals, inter alia, with the trauma of memory loss and the quest to recuperate the original self.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The film focuses on a forty-year old female protagonist, Marie Speranski (played by Juliette Binoche), who awakes one day to discover that she cannot remember anything of the previous fifteen years of her life. Her last memory relates to her initial encounter with her husband Paul Speranski (played by Matthieu Kassovitz) at a time when she is depicted as being young and carefree. Bit by bit Marie has to piece together her identity and comes to the painful realisation that the woman she has grown into has nothing in common with the self that she remembers. Originally from a modest background, she is now an extremely wealthy and successful business woman: at the beginning of the film we see her talent being recognised by Paul’s father, head of a very important finance firm, who invites her to join their company. She is also a mother to a child she cannot recall having and on the brink of divorce from a marriage that, similarly, she cannot remember breaking down. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">While this conflict between a ‘before’ and ‘after’ self brought on by Marie’s amnesia can be interpreted from a number of perspectives, one of the most obvious being the gap between the realities of adulthood and dreams of youth, it was the depiction of the working mother as someone who had betrayed her ‘true’ identity that was, for me, at the heart of this film. As Marie begins to gather information from those around her about the last fifteen years of her life, the spectator is made aware of a kind of moralising experience that is taking place for the protagonist. We learn that she has risen to the top of the company for which we saw her being recruited at the beginning of the film and that her talent as a business woman is in demand internationally. However, in rising to the top of her career, there is a sense that she has abandoned her ‘feminine’ values and that she has neglected the place where society considers her to be most needed, that is, at home with her husband and child. The world of work and power is portrayed as a masculine domain (the only other women in her workplace are secretaries and receptionists) and there is a feeling in the film that by being so successful Marie has become a ‘like a man’, and that this, in turn, has devastating consequences for her marriage and homelife. First of all, it appears that she has usurped her husband, Paul, who, unlike his wife, has been struggling in his career as a comic book artist. While Marie’s work takes her out of the home to a luxurious executive office (situated on a floor full of workers over whom she has complete control), Paul works from home in a little atelier at the top of the house. Marie’s mobility juxtaposed against Paul’s immobility has thus disturbed the ‘natural order’ of the home and can only end badly. Similarly, becoming ‘like a man’ has impacted on her ability to mother - she makes a mess of the cooking, doesn’t know how to play her child’s games properly and can’t get him to school on time. Of course, this could also be explained by her amnesia, but I think that there is more to it than that alone. Moreover, in opposition to the female professional who has forgotten how to mother is the character of the nanny in the film who is presented as being more in harmony with the child’s needs than Marie. A further way in which the film depicts the ‘masculinisation’ of Marie that takes place when she enters the corporate environment lies in the change that occurs in her appearance: she cuts her hair short and adopts the standard business uniform of the power suit. When her amnesia takes hold, Marie, of course, resumes her former, more feminine style, puts on a pretty summer dress and talks of growing her hair again. This is greeted positively by her son (and also her husband, I feel, who begins to notice her again), thus revealing a nostalgia in the film for a more traditional image of the mother, a mother who is gentle and warm, as opposed to the trouser donning female executive who is depicted as cold and distant.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What ensues, then, in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La vie d’une autre femme</i>, is a kind of corrective narrative where Marie realises how much she has sacrificed for the sake of her career and subsequently strives to restore the ‘natural order’ in the home by tending to her child and winning back her husband. A domestic lifestyle is presented as much more rewarding than a high-powered executive position. It is also interesting to note that during this period of amnesia when Marie cannot really go to work (because she can’t remember what it is she actually does there) and we see her as being more present in the home, her husband’s career finally starts to take off, thus suggesting that a ‘natural’ balance is being restored. By the end of the film, Marie has decided that she needs to make some changes in her life. In a conversation with her father-in-law and owner of the company (Mr Speranski), Marie is informed that she can have a transfer to another office. In this same conversation, Marie is simultaneously criticised for not valuing her family enough by the very man who recruited her in the first place. This would seem to suggest that it is acceptable for women to work only when it doesn’t interfere with their responsibilities in the home – we should recall that when Mr Speranski initially hired Marie, she was single and childless. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the end, Marie decides to leave Paris for a fresh start in London. Although she is not giving up her job, her relationship to work and ambition has clearly been altered. She is insistent that her son will come with her, and the film closes with the feeling that Marie has ‘learnt a lesson’ and that a resolution has been reached through the protagonist’s rediscovery of her nurturing side. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To conclude, it would appear that the rather depressing message propagated by Testud’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La vie d’une autre femme’</i> is, as Ann-Marie Slaughter’s widely-read article published in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Atlantic</i> earlier this year states, that ‘women can’t have it all’ – a career at the top cannot be combined with the demands of caring. In fact, the very title of the film points to this idea, that is, that the lives of a working woman and nurturing mother/wife are simply not compatible – they belong to two very different women. Furthermore, the emphasis that the film places on rediscovering one’s ‘true’ self in the film suggests that the mother who works is a mother who is guilty of ‘bad faith’. Keeping all of this mind, it is fair, I feel, to say that this particular film is punitive to women who wish to combine motherhood, marriage and work as it really only presents two options (the ‘good stay-at-home mother and wife’ vs. the ‘bad working mother and wife’) without considering how a balance might be reached. It could, I suppose, be argued that Marie’s decision at the end of the film to change jobs but take her son with her is, perhaps, an indicator of a third way. However, this is where the narrative stops, hence, there is no way of knowing whether or not a third way is actually viable.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01664165744232621567noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569002993319817123.post-14596994476050448562012-11-22T09:45:00.000-08:002012-11-22T09:45:39.629-08:00Some links to recent discussions of mothering and work, and mothering as work <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In light of the discussions we've been having about mothering and work, and mothering as work, (following on from our 'mothering and employment' workshop), here are some relevant links: </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Nina Power's discussion on her latest radio programme on resonance fm (November 11th 2012):</span><br />
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<a href="http://soundcloud.com/resonance-fm/sets/the-hour-of-power-1/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> http://soundcloud.com/resonance-fm/sets/the-hour-of-power-1/ </span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">One of the books Nina discusses is 'The Problem with Work' by Kathi Weeks (2011):</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Problem-Work-Feminism-Antiwork-Imaginaries/dp/0822351129"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">http://www.amazon.co.uk/Problem-Work-Feminism-Antiwork-Imaginaries/dp/0822351129</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">For a shortcut, I've written a review of Weeks' book in Radical Philosophy (Issue 175 2012): </span><br />
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<a href="http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/reviews/175-reviews"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/reviews/175-reviews</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Finally, Stella Sandford's article 'What is Maternal Labour' (Studies in the Maternal, Issue 2, 2011) considers '</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #202020;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">the specificity of maternal labour as </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #202020;"><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">labour</span></em></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #202020;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> and what is its specificity as </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #202020;"><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">maternal</span></em></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #202020;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">?' </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #202020; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="http://www.mamsie.bbk.ac.uk/back_issues/3_2/Sandford_SiM_3_2_2011.html">http://www.mamsie.bbk.ac.uk/back_issues/3_2/Sandford_SiM_3_2_2011.html</a></span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #202020; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Please do add any more links or references that you've come across. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #202020; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Thanks,</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #202020; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Victoria </span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01664165744232621567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569002993319817123.post-86089295580632662772012-11-09T02:34:00.003-08:002013-05-03T04:08:54.461-07:00Report on Workshop 2: Mothering and Work: Employment Trends and Work, by Katarina Carlshamre<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Notes on the second workshop of the network</span></b></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Sitting on the airplane home to Sweden after the workshop, I was filled by a buzzling sensation of adventure. This had been the first time I ever met a group of other scholars working on motherhood in a context where literature was in focus, and I was excited.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><a href="http://www.igrs.sas.ac.uk/sites/default/files/files/AHRC%20Motherhood%20Network/Workshop%202%20Final%20Programme.pdf">http://www.igrs.sas.ac.uk/sites/default/files/files/AHRC%20Motherhood%20Network/Workshop%202%20Final%20Programme.pdf</a></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">Victoria asked me the other day if I wanted to write a report from the workshop to post here on the blog. It had been more than a week since the workshop, and I realized, after looking at my notes from the day, that I would have little help from them (they are mostly questions and associations) but I gave it a try. The result, I’m afraid, is closer to “blog-notes on the workshop” than to a formal report. Please comment, elaborate and/or protest! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">1. The aim of the workshop</span></b><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> was “to identify specific problem areas relating to the relationship between mothering and paid work in Europe, asking what kind of insights literature may offer to the issues raised”. A very optimistic objective, to be sure, but I think that we, to some extent at least, achieved it. Problem areas which I observed, and which reappeared throughout the day, were vulnerability/precarity, isolation, and the (inherent?) contradictions of the maternal experience. I think we also saw several example of how literature, by its capacity to capture life’s fundamental complexity and contradictions, and doing so by intuitive and direct understanding, can help us resist schematic conceptions of maternal experiences.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">2. The structure of the workshop<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The workshop was organized into three blocks. Two of them (1 & 3) were interdisciplinary plenary panels, with one sociologist and one literary scholar in each one, the first panel also including the paper of a historian. The remaining block (2) was constituted by three breakout sessions, where literary extracts were discussed in smaller groups, which then reported back to the whole workshop. The literary texts were from a diverse range of countries: Italy, France, Greece, Czechoslovakia and Sweden. The social science presentations were from Italy (one paper) and the UK (three papers).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">A note I wrote on the airplane home: In what ways can research which produces knowledge in one national context be of use for researchers working both in other national contexts and in different disciplines? (i.e. how is British literature of interest for German sociologists etc) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">3. The Social science presentations<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In her response to the first interdisciplinary panel, Janneke van Mens-Verhulst stated that “the similarities between our West-European nations appear to be more impressive than the differences. F.e. the motherhood penalty in earnings, the role of grand-parents, and society’s half-heartedness and ambivalence in providing parental leave and day-care for children.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Indeed, all of the presentations during the workshop told of social-political contexts in which the opportunity of mothers to combine parenthood and work is not facilitated enough. </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS Mincho';">In her historical overview of the UK, Pat Thane underlined the significance both of economic impetus, psychological experts’ discourses on motherhood and the (lack of) political will, for the shaping of the conditions for mothers’ work. T</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">he sociological presentations showed that the conflict between caring responsibilities and job constraints is still a women’s issue (not something which concerns parents of both sexes), both in the UK and in Italy. Bertoloni’s research demonstrates for example that couples do not respond to the conflict childcare/work by questioning the institutional arrangements (or the father’s role), but by reducing the mothers commitment to work. Miller stated that deeply entrenched assumptions about gender roles still govern the way parents organize the work-life balance. Despite a positive attitude towards the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">idea</i> of gender equal parenting, in practice little has changed during the last decades. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS Mincho';">It is important, I think, to keep in mind that the only national contexts discussed from the non-literary disciplines during the day was the UK and Italy, two of the countries where provisions of parental leave are the lowest in Europe. Variations within Europe, differences between countries, were only very slightly part of the discussion during the day, but would be interesting to pursue. </span><u><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">4. The literary presentations<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">A rich array of questions were discussed in relation to the literary texts. Here are some of the aspects I recall (please feel free to correct and/or complement my list): <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">a) The transition to motherhood, and the discrepancy between expectations and reality. The interesting fact that knowledge of the more difficult sides of motherhood, still seem to be very difficult to transfer to the next generation. Why is this so? (</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: EN-US;">Susan Maushart’s</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> idea of the mask of motherhood comes to my mind.)</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"></span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mask-Motherhood-Becoming-Mother-Changes/dp/0140291784">http://www.amazon.com/Mask-Motherhood-Becoming-Mother-Changes/dp/0140291784</a></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">b) The insecurity, the precarity, of the mother’s work situation. In Carmen Covito’s “Tempo parziale”, working conditions forces a work-oriented mother to become a full-time mother. This is an Italian text, but the conflict is applicable to the reality of several European countries where working life includes long hours and scarce opportunities for part-time work, where day-care is either difficult to get or very expensive and where the idea of the father is that of a breadwinner, not a care-taker. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS Mincho';">c) Monica Jansen talked about the use of irony as a form of resistance, and irony as a literary technique. The idea that collective precarity can be transformative. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS Mincho';">This raises the more general question of maternal revolt against socio-political structures. It is interesting that the revolt of the Italian mother (if there is one in the text) is never turned against the father. In the Swedish mother narrative novels that I study this is the primary focus. But even if a mother sees the inequalities inside the couple, revolt is difficult. How do you show resistance in your daily life without putting your children’s well-being at risk? It is easy to fight against gender inequality in the home by refusing to do the dishes, for example, or even pretend that you don’t know how to. Dirty dishes won’t get harmed by neglect. It is not as easy not to pick up your children after school because you think it’s your husband’s turn to do it, if you know he won’t.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS Mincho';">d) Mothers putting her children first vs. Mothers putting herself first. Helena Forsås-Scott’s presentation involved a mother who, even as she is being attacked in her own home, thinks about her children before the protection of her own body. Margarita Lymperaki, on the other hand, gives us a mother who puts her artistic work before the care of her daughter, a mother who is not a bodily presence for her child, but has given the child her name. (The traditional male position.) What is a mother, and what is she supposed to be? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">e) In the French text, work is described as the mother’s only safe haven, in the Czecz text work is described as something that motherhood can liberate the woman from. Work means very different things. And how do we define work? Is the structuring “mothering and work” a good way to conceptualize the problem if we seek to challenge the dichotomy “mother/work”?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">To illustrate that the issue of motherhood and work in Europe is not all dark, and that there is hope, I will end with a quote from the Swedish novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bitter bitch</i> (2007) in which the narrator shares the parental leave with her husband.</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bitter-Bitch-Maria-Sveland/dp/1849019681">http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bitter-Bitch-Maria-Sveland/dp/1849019681</a></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman';">“When it was Johan’s turn to stay at home everything changed, slowly but surely. Suddenly Johan was the one who knew everything, from when something was missing from the fridge or that Sigge needed a new winter coat, to which story Sigge liked the best. Suddenly I was the one who came home to a tired Johan in need of relief. I came home happy and filled with stories from the outside world”. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01664165744232621567noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569002993319817123.post-1872555720613676442012-09-07T03:06:00.000-07:002012-09-07T03:06:20.310-07:00Who wants to have it all? Why mothering remains an important space for feminist resistance and contestation, by Roberta Guerrina.<div class="Body1" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Ann-Marie Slaughter's recent piece 'Why Women Still Can't Have it All' published in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Atlantic </i>earlier this year has gone viral. It has generated wide reaching debate in policy and academic circles. This is clearly a heartfelt piece. Slaughter provides a candid overview of the struggles and internal conflict she felt as a working mother. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-cant-have-it-all/309020/"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-cant-have-it-all/309020/</span></a></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">The response she has received to the article in the form of comments, blogs and response pieces highlights something that I have been trying to grapple with the whole of my career: mothering. The values associated with this function, remain as contested today as they were at the height of the equality-difference debate in the 1960s and 1970s. Whereas Liberal feminists have long advocated equality of access (i.e. formal or legal equality), difference and Radical feminists have focused on revaluating women’s caring role as a key value of society. Feminist scholars have thus been trying to navigate a difficult social and political territory between promoting women's right to participate in the employment market on an equal footing to men whilst recognising the importance of care as a social function. The main aim of most feminist work in this field is and has been to challenge a socio-economic model that is based on the division between public and private, and which supports inequitable gender hierarchies in the family. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;">The starting point for a meaningful engagement with Slaughter's argument must be to recognise these tensions. Equally, we should acknowledge that there is nothing fixed or essential about the current gender order or the socio-economic structures within which we all operate. These values are neither neutral nor natural; they reflect a set of dominant social, political and economic interests that shape and restrict individual choices.</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Slaughter’s main argument revolves around the impossibility of reconciling the demands of a high level executive or political career with the responsibilities of mothering. It should be noted at this point that Slaughter’s standpoint is based on her personal experience of trying to reconcile a career at the top of the American political pyramid with the demands of caring. As she points out in the second half of her article, she has been able, and continues to be able, to reconcile a highly successful career as an academic and public intellectual with the demands of mothering. What she perceives as the key to unlock the “holy grail” that is work-life balance was flexibility. Something she clearly felt was not reconcilable with the ambitions of US foreign policy and the demands of the State Department, despite working for a boss as understanding as Hilary Clinton. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">The conflict of interests and emotions she experiences is something that many working mothers would recognise. These complex emotions, however, come as something of a revelation to Slaughter, leading her to a revaluation of core values. In particular she considers whether women with care responsibilities (i.e. mothers) can, or should try, to compete for high level jobs. She provides other examples of women who made the difficult choice to scale down professional activities/aspirations to concentrate on the needs of their families. Slaughter is sensitive to the complex set of variables that influence these women’s choices, but ultimately she concludes that focusing on equality in the public sphere (i.e. politics, employment and the boardroom) has been at the expense of women’s caring role. In so doing, Slaughter provides a detailed critique of liberal feminism, particularly the expectations placed upon women and the limitations of this approach to equality. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Men and socio-economic structures are not forgotten in this open and personal assessment of the shortcomings of the work-life balance narrative. Fathers have a particularly important role to play in changing expectations. She recognizes that men also cannot “have it all”. Many highly successful men may have to “sacrifice” the kind of personal fulfillment that is enjoyed by playing an active role in the upbringing of a child, for a “greater” (public) purpose. Yet, she also notes that wider society seemingly remains supportive of these choices. Such sacrifice is often seen as duty towards the family or the nation; there is little or no reflection in the press of the impact this has on children, society and “the family”. The same is not true of working mothers. So, she concludes that we should reconsider whether women should adopt the dominant masculine values that permeate contemporary economic structures. Rather than engaging in a detailed critique of hegemonic power hierarchies, she retreats into a difference stance that assumes the ethic of caring and the demands of work binary opposites. Clearly, what is needed is for feminist scholars and activists to deconstruct and challenge the very values upon which the labour market is based. This means challenging the long hour working culture for all, not just working parents (mothers and fathers). Recognition that balance will benefit society (and the economy) in the long run should remain one the key propositions of feminist politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Slaughter’s final conclusions about the role and position of mothers within the family are potentially a dangerous position to take. Media coverage of the (negative) impact of maternal employment on the psychological and social development of children is testament to the power of the hegemonic order. Most social scientists would point out that none of these values are fixed or detached from the pursuit of specific socio-economic interests. Yet the guilt is real for many working mothers. Well meaning childcare providers’ disciplining behaviour towards mothers (it is mostly mothers) who arrive late to collect children at the end of a working day not only shape women’s self perceptions, it also socializes children into the hegemonic discourse. Slaughter’s feelings should therefore not be divorced from the wider social framework that has helped to shape her identity as a professional woman and mother.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">The article does what most good feminist writing should do: it asks where are the men? Not just in terms of the absence from the private, but also their role in shaping employment structures. Slaughter is quick to acknowledge the supporting role played by her husband, also a highly accomplished international scholar. Clearly fathers/partners have an important role to play in augmenting equality of access and equality of opportunities in formal employment. Recognition that diversity matters, not just in terms of economic/market gains, but also in terms of social prosperity should then lead to a revolution in the way we conceptualise and structure work (both paid and unpaid). Slaughter opens the door to this kind of contestation but falls short of the intended objective by not challenging the values that underpin this particular gender order and associated economic model. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Laura Sjoberg's (2012) response to Slaughter’s piece picks up on many of these issues, though she reminds us that work-life balance does not matter only for working parents. Her criticism revolves around the expectation that women can, want and/or should be mothers. She therefore calls for a non-essentialist feminist politics that helps us to challenge dominant narratives about what means to be a woman, a mother and a professional. Recognition that gender values (including dominant views about mothers’ and women’s roles in society) are an articulation of a particular social order allows us to uncover relations of power within society, the work place and the family. Sjoberg is right in challenging the focus on mothering, yet this must remain one of the main spaces of feminist contestation and resistance. Dominant assumptions about gender roles and divisions stem from entrenched views of mothering and caring. This should not lead us to buy into essentialist views of gender, but should encourage a continued engagement with critiques of the disciplining role of social values. For these values not only shape the relationship with the public sphere of women with children; ageing population is adding a different, but equally gendered dimension, to the politics of care. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><a href="http://duckofminerva.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/having-it-all-and-non-essentialist.html"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">http://duckofminerva.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/having-it-all-and-non-essentialist.html</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Slaughter is right in calling for a detailed critique of how we value success and achievement. Recognition that nobody can “have it all” at any one time should be the starting point of a renegotiation of the gender and economic contract upon which contemporary socio-economic structures are based. The sharp decline in fertility rates in some parts of Europe is testament to the changes in women’s aspirations and expectations about participation in the public sphere. I have argued elsewhere that this demographic transition is the result of deeply engrained inequalities that prevent women from being able to reconcile aspirations in the public and the private sphere. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><a href="http://www.surrey.ac.uk/politics/people/roberta_guerrina/index.htm"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">http://www.surrey.ac.uk/politics/people/roberta_guerrina/index.htm</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">The discourse of “reconciliation between work and family life” or “work-life balance” had come into vogue in the last decade as a way to encourage women’s labour market activation. Despite the gender neutral language of the vast array of policies that have been adopted under this particular umbrella, their main aim is to allow women (mothers) to engage in formal employment. Lip service is often paid to encouraging men to take a greater share of responsibility in caring for children (and increasingly the elderly), yet the socio-economic structures have remained largely unchanged. Ultimately the current socio-economic model is largely exploitative of both men and women. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I find myself broadly in agreement with Slaughter’s position. Managing my professional goals with increasing numbers of family activities is constant juggling act. Yet, I find this process empowering as well as both emotionally and physically tiring. However, my standpoint, much like Slaughter’s, comes from a position of privilege. Not only I work in a profession that is both interesting and intellectually stimulating, I also have the opportunity to work (fairly) flexible hours. This is not the reality for many working women/mothers. One of the most powerful myths of the turn of the century is that maternal employment is a recent development. Working-class women have always had to juggle the reality of work with mothering and caring because of economic necessity. What is different about the current situations is the rise of middle-class values and their dominance in current society. Far from spending less time with children, 21<sup>st</sup> century working mother are devoting an increasing amount of time to child led activities. These are the kind of (normative) expectations that shape women’s experience of work and parenting. This vision of society, however, is not gender neutral. Despite recent claims about the advance of the adult worker model, the values that underpinned the male breadwinner model continue to permeate the social order. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-fareast-font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Hegemonic gender norms tend to resurface to serve “higher” political and economic interests. We are still trying to assess the long term impact of the current crisis on women’s equality. A lot of work has gone into challenging these values, yet many women (myself included) are trapped between social expectations and personal aspirations. I have long accepted that I cannot have it all, all of the time, but neither have the majority of men and women in history. We must remember that women’s employment is not a new development, what is new are the pressures and demands placed upon men and women in post-industrial societies. Wellbeing and balance should replace “having it all” as a frame of reference as a starting point for developing a society that revolves around people rather than economic interests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01664165744232621567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569002993319817123.post-13213645757179898622012-08-10T08:52:00.000-07:002012-08-10T08:53:38.934-07:00Rethinking Olmi's 'Beside the Sea', by Gill Rye<br />
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Our featured text at our first
workshop, in May 2012, was Véronique Olmi’s superb novella <i>Beside the Sea </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(2010; originally published in French as </span><i>Bord
de mer </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(2001)), which is about maternal
ambivalence and despair, ending with a mother’s murder of her children. My
paper on the text focused on the mother’s voice and perspective in the novel,
considering its various literary techniques and effects. </span><br />
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<a href="http://www.sas.ac.uk/videos-and-podcasts/culture-language-literature/infanticide-ambivalence-desperation-mother-s-voice-v">http://www.sas.ac.uk/videos-and-podcasts/culture-language-literature/infanticide-ambivalence-desperation-mother-s-voice-v</a></div>
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<span style="font-style: normal;">As part of my
argument, I stated that the narrative was relatively coherent and thus did not
fall into the category of ‘trauma fiction’ (as defined by Anne Whitehead
(2004)), that is, fiction that mimics traumatic narratives, and includes
techniques such as repetitions, ellipses, flashbacks, blank spaces,
non-chronological narratives and screen memories, to evoke the effects of
trauma. However, since then, I have thought more about this point, because
there </span><i>are</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> silences in the text –
as indeed I mentioned in my paper – and I would now tend to argue that haunting
the narrative of the events leading up to the mother’s killing of her children
are traces of another narrative, suggesting a trauma behind – or at the root of
– the tragic outcome. This trauma narrative is, then, not the narrative of
child murder, or even of maternal ambivalence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather, it is to be read in the silences and fragmented
comments about the narrator’s family background and her physical and mental
state (for example, asides about broken teeth and shoulder problems suggest she
has been subjected to physical violence), implying that the killing may partly
be the outcome of some trauma that cannot be spoken. My paper is still work in
progress and I intend to explore this aspect further in due course. </span></div>
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Since the book,
which has been translated into a number of European languages (including
Italian, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Danish, Hungarian and Polish),
generated a great deal of discussion at the workshop, and there is much more to
be said about it, perhaps we could kick off the virtual reading group by
discussing it further now. So, I’d like to invite participants who were at the
first workshop and anyone else who would like to get involved to post their
thoughts about this text here. If you have not yet read it, it is available in
English translation from the publisher, <a href="http://www.peirenepress.com/">http://www.peirenepress.com/</a>
and in English and other languages from various on-line booksellers.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01664165744232621567noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569002993319817123.post-71058085161426283242012-08-06T03:10:00.003-07:002012-08-10T08:52:56.198-07:00On starting the network, by Gill Rye (Principal Investigator)<div style="text-align: justify;">
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The Motherhood in post-1968 European Literature Network is something I have been thinking about for some years. As much feminist work has shown, motherhood is best treated in an interdisciplinary environment. Indeed, scholars of literature commonly draw on feminist work from sociology, psychology, psychoanalysis, politics, social policy, philosophy, and so on, to inform their readings of representations and narratives of mothering in literary texts. However, although this cross-fertilisation does sometimes happen in the reverse, it is not quite so usual. Like me though, my colleagues here at the cross-cultural Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women’s Writing at the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London, believe that motherhood in literature – and in women’s writing in particular – has plenty to offer other disciplines, and so we are delighted to have received support from the Arts & Humanities Research Council to develop this Network. We are also really encouraged to have received so much positive interest already from researchers from many different disciplines. As I explained in my introduction to the first workshop in May 2012, our impetus for this work is the climate of changing family demographics in Europe – as a consequence of changing family patterns, new reproductive technologies, mass migration and globalisation, hybridisation of identities, the economic crisis, and high unemployment figures – which are creating new experiences, challenges and opportunities for women as mothers, and new issues and challenges for feminisms and feminist scholars and researchers of motherhood and the family. We think literature can contribute useful insights in such a climate.</div>
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<a href="http://www.sas.ac.uk/videos-and-podcasts/culture-language-literature/motherhood-theories-methods-and-narratives-introduct">http://www.sas.ac.uk/videos-and-podcasts/culture-language-literature/motherhood-theories-methods-and-narratives-introduct</a></div>
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Effective interdisciplinary work is exciting but difficult. Even with the very best of intentions and will, problems and tensions arise to do with individual disciplinary methodologies, different understandings of the nature of evidence, discipline-specific vocabulary and terminology, and this can also be the case in cross-cultural and comparative discussions. Across the Network workshops, and the conference in October 2013, we aim to make all sessions interdisciplinary, so that papers on literature come into direct dialogue with those from other disciplines, and to try to deal with any attendant problems as we go along. </div>
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We are also including featured texts, discussion of passages from literature, author readings, and I plan to start a virtual reading group on this blog.</div>
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01664165744232621567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6569002993319817123.post-88733038718115954342012-07-26T09:11:00.000-07:002012-07-26T09:11:00.245-07:00<br />
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Welcome to the blog for the Motherhood in post-1968 European Literature Network.</h4>
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The Network is funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (UK) and is based at the Centre for Contemporary Women’s Writing at the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London. It was launched on 1 March 2012 and will continue until 30 November 2013.</div>
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The aim of the Network is to initiate cross-cultural, transnational, and interdisciplinary dialogue on motherhood. It is bringing together researchers from the UK and Europe studying motherhood in contemporary European literatures, with researchers and practitioners working on motherhood from philosophy, psychoanalysis, sociology, ethnography, politics and law, as well as art and film studies.</div>
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Through a series of workshops, online resources and activities, readings, and a major conference and exhibition, the Network is exploring what representations and narratives of motherhood in women-authored literatures may have to offer different disciplines engaged in the study of motherhood and mothering. Further, we are considering ways in which these discussions can feed into wider social, cultural, and political discourses, thereby contributing to the impact agenda.</div>
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This blog will serve as a forum for discussion, and for spreading information about the Network's events and publications, as well as other events or articles related to the study of motherhood and mothering. </div>
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<b><br /></b></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01664165744232621567noreply@blogger.com0