Textual Mothers/Maternal Texts

Description

Textual Mothers/Maternal Texts focuses on mothers as subjects and as writers who produce auto/biography, fiction, and poetry about maternity. International contributors examine the mother without child, with child, and in her multiple identities as grandmother, mother, and daughter.

The collection examines how authors use textual spaces to accept, negotiate, resist, or challenge traditional conceptions of mothering and maternal roles, and how these texts offer alternative practices and visions for mothers. Further, it illuminates how textual representations both reflect and help to define or (re)shape the realities of women and families by examining how mothering and being a mother are political, personal, and creative narratives unfolding within both the pages of a book and the spaces of a life. The range of chapters maps a shift from the daughter-centric stories that have dominated the maternal tradition to the matrilineal and matrifocal perspectives that have emerged over the last few decades as the mother’s voice moved from silence to speech.

Contributors make aesthetic, cultural, and political claims and critiques about mothering and motherhood, illuminating in new and diverse ways how authors and the protagonists of the texts “read” their own maternal identities as well as the maternal scripts of their families, cultures, and nations in their quest for self-knowledge, agency, and artistic expression.

Sujets

• Women's studies
• Literary criticism

Informations

• Publié par: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Date de parution: 25 janvier 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781554582921
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Textual Mothers / Maternal Texts

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Textual Mothers / Maternal Texts Motherhood in Contemporary Women’s Literatures

elizabeth podnieks and andrea o reilly, editors ’

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humani- ties and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Wilfrid Laurier University Press acknowledges the nancial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication  Textual mothers / maternal texts : motherhood in contemporary women’s literatures / Elizabeth Podnieks and Andrea O’Reilly, editors.

Includes bibliographical references and index. Also available in electronic formats. ISBN 978-1-55458-180-1

 1. Mothers in literature. 2. Motherhood in literature. 3. Mother and child in literature. 4. Canadian literature —Women authors —History and criticism. 5. American literature —Women authors —History and criticism. 6. Canadian literature —20th century —History and criticism. 7. American literature —20th century —History and criticism. I. Podnieks, Elizabeth II. O’Reilly, Andrea, 1961–

PS8089.5.W6T45 2010 820.9’35252 C2009-904029-8

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

 Textual mothers / maternal texts [electronic resource] : motherhood in contemporary women’s literatures / Elizabeth Podnieks and Andrea O’Reilly, editors.

Includes bibliographical references and index. Electronic monograph available in PDF, XML, and ePub formats. Also available in printed format. ISBN 978-1-55458-209-9

 1. Mothers in literature. 2. Motherhood in literature. 3. Mother and child in literature. 4. Canadian literature —Women authors —History and criticism. 5. American literature —Women authors —History and criticism. 6. Canadian literature—20th century —History and criticism. 7. American literature —20th century —History and criticism. I. Podnieks, Elizabeth II. O’Reilly, Andrea, 1961–

PS8089.5.W6T45 2010a 820.9’35252

© 2010 Wilfrid Laurier University Press Waterloo, Ontario, Canada www.wlupress.wlu.ca

Cover image:Mother and Child, a painting by F. G. Davis (fgdavis.co.uk). Cover design by Blakely Words+Pictures. Text design by Martyn Schmoll This book is printed on FSC recycled paper and is certied Ecologo. It is made from 100% post-consumer bre, processed chlorine free, and manufactured using biogas energy. Printed in Canada Every reasonable effort has been made to acquire permission for copyright material used in this text, and to acknowledge all such indebtedness accurately. Any errors and omissions called to the publisher’s attention will be corrected in future printings. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

Contents

Acknowledgements | ix

Introduction: Maternal Literatures in Text and Tradition: Daughter- Centric, Matrilineal, and Matrifocal Perspectives | 1 elizabeth podnieks and andrea o’reilly

Part 1: Maternal Absence

 1. Aberrant, Absent, Alienated: Reading the Maternal in Jane Urquhart’s First Two Novels,The WhirlpoolandChanging Heaven| 31  myrl coulter

 2. Motherless Daughters: The Absent Mothers in Margaret Atwood | 47  nancy peled

 3. Writing about Abusive Mothers: Ethics and Auto/biography | 63  kate douglas

 4. “Red Mother”: The Missing Mother Plot as Double Mystery in Louise Erdrich’s Fiction | 79  sheila hassell hughes

 5. “This was her punishment”: Jew, Whore, Mother in the Fiction of Adele Wiseman and Lilian Nattel | 95  ruth panofsky

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Part 2: Maternal Ambivalence

 6. Eden Robinson’s “Dogs in Winter”: Parodic Extremes of Mothering | 111  nathalie foy

 7. Subverting the Saintly Mother: The Novels of Gabrielle Poulin | 125  kathleen kellett-betsos

 8. “Opaque with confusion and shame”: Maternal Ambivalence in Rita Dove’s Poetry | 141  elizabeth beaulieu

 9. Maternal Blitz: Harriet Lovatt as Postpartum Sufferer in Doris Lessing’s The Fifth Child| 157  denys landry

10. We Need to Talk about Gender: Mothering and Masculinity in Lionel Shriver’sWe Need to Talk about Kevin| 169  emily jeremiah

Part 3: Maternal Agency

11. Narrating Maternal Subjectivity: Memoirs from Motherhood | 187  joanne s. frye

12. The Motherhood Memoir and the “New Momism”: Biting the Hand That Feeds You | 203  andrea o’reilly

13. “I had to make a future, willful, voluble, lascivious”: Minnie Bruce Pratt’s Disruptive Lesbian Maternal Narratives | 215  susan driver

14. Lesbian Mothering in Contemporary French Literature | 227  gill rye

15. But She’s a Mom! Sex, Motherhood, and the Poetry of Sharon Olds | 241  rita jones

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16. (Grand)mothering “Children of the Apocalypse”: A Post-postmodern Ecopoetic Reading of Margaret Laurence’sThe Diviners| 253  di brandt

Part 4: Maternal Communication

17. Colonialism’s Impact on Mothering: Jamaica Kincaid’s Rendering of the Mother–Daughter Split inAnnie John| 273  nicole willey

18. Mother to Daughter: Muted Maternal Feminism in the Fiction of Sandra Cisneros | 287  rita bode

19. Cracking(Mother)India| 303  tanja stampfl

20. Asian American Mothering in the Absence of Talk Story:Obasan and Chorus of Mushrooms| 317  anne-marie lee-loy

21. Baby, Boo-Boo, and Bobs: The Matrilineal Auto/biographies of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, Frances Scott Fitzgerald, and Eleanor Lanahan | 333  elizabeth podnieks

22. Revelations and Representations: Birth Stories and Motherhood on the Internet | 351  kim hensley owens

Coda: “Stories to Live By”: Maternal Literatures and Motherhood Studies | 367  andrea o’reilly

 Notes on the Contributors | 375

 Index | 379

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Acknowledgements

Textual Mothers/Maternal Textsis the product of many people whose efforts supporting and producing the collection we wish to acknowledge here. To the more than one hundred scholars who submitted proposals in response to our call for papers, and who thus underscored the vital timeliness of this work on motherhood and literatures, we express both our gratitude for their interest and our apologies that we could not include them all. To our twenty contributors, we extend our congratulations for their compelling scholar- ship and our appreciation for their eager and patient willingness to work with us and with our Laurier Press editors in bringing their chapters to nal form. We are indebted to Jacqueline Larson, who as acquisitions editor for the Press rst put the proposed collection under contract, and to her successor, Lisa Quinn, for her continuing commitment to the project. Lisa’s unfailing support and encouragement throughout the various stages has been invalu- able. We recognize the enormous amount of time offered by the two read- ers for the Press, and thank them for their insights and suggestions, which were most helpful to us as we made our revisions. We value the efforts of Rob Kohlmeier, managing editor; Marcia Gallego, copy editor; and Leslie Ma- credie, website and marketing coordinator, who came aboard in the latter stages of production and who worked so efciently and creatively. We are, as

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