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italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies Motherhood in Literature and Culture: Interdisciplinary Perspectives from Europe Thursday, 26 October 2017, 7-9 pm Freud Museum London, 20 Maresfield Gardens, London NW3 5SX, UK The editors would like to invite you to celebrate the publication of 'Motherhood in Literature and Culture: Interdisciplinary Perspectives from Europe' (Routledge). Dealing with a range of topics including pregnancy and birth, affect and ambivalence, and family and legacy, this book - edited by Gill Rye, Victoria Browne, Adalgisa Giorgio, Emily Jeremiah, and Abigail Lee Six - will provoke discussion and debate about that most crucial of human activities, mothering. The volume grew out of an initiative developed at the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women’s Writing at the Institute of Modern Languages Research and funded by the AHRC. Doors open at 7 pm and the event starts at 7.15 pm prompt. Co-editor Emily Jeremiah (Royal Holloway, University of London) will be joined by Carolyn Jess-Cooke (University of Glasgow), who founded the ‘Writing Motherhood’ project, and by Lisa Baraitser (Birkbeck, University of London), a key thinker in contemporary motherhood studies. The discussion will be chaired by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and will be followed by drinks and networking. The event is generously supported by Royal Holloway, University of London. Registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/motherhood-in-literature-and-culture-tickets-36437821505 'Motherhood in Literature and Culture: Interdisciplinary Perspectives from Europe' Motherhood remains a complex and contested issue in feminist research as well as public discussion. This interdisciplinary volume explores cultural representations of motherhood in various contemporary European contexts, including France, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and the UK, and it considers how such representations affect the ways in which different individuals and groups negotiate motherhood as both institution and lived experience. It has a particular focus on literature, but it also includes essays that examine representations of motherhood in philosophy, art, social policy, and film. The book's driving contention is that, through intersecting with other fields and disciplines, literature and culture, and the study of literature and culture, have an important role to play in nuancing dialogues around motherhood, by offering challenging insights and imaginative responses to complex problems and experiences. This is demonstrated throughout the volume, which covers a range of topics including: discursive and visual depictions of pregnancy and birth; the impact of new reproductive technologies on changing family configurations; the relationship between motherhood and citizenship; the shaping of policy imperatives regarding mothering and disability; and the difficult realities of miscarriage, child death, violence, and infanticide. The collection expands and complicates hegemonic notions of motherhood, as the authors map and analyse shifting conceptions of maternal subjectivity and embodiment, explore some of the constraining and/or enabling contexts in which mothering takes place, and ask searching questions about what it means to be a ‘mother’ in Europe today. It will be of interest not only to those working in gender, women's and feminist studies, but also to scholars in literary and cultural studies, and those researching in sociology, criminology, politics, psychology, medical ethics, midwifery, and related fields. Contents: Acknowledgements xi Foreword, Lisa Baraitser xiii Introduction: Motherhood in Literature and Culture, Gill Rye, Victoria Browne, Adalgisa Giorgio, Emily Jeremiah, and Abigail Lee Six 1 Part I: Pregnancy and Birth 15 1 Birth Fear and the Subjugation of Women’s Strength: Towards a Broader Conceptualization of Femininity in Birth, Susannah Sweetman 17 2 The Temporalities of Pregnancy: On Contingency, Loss, and Waiting, Victoria Browne 33 3 An (Un)familiar Story: Exploring Ultrasound Poems by Contemporary British Women Writers, Emily Blewitt 46 4 Birthing Tales and Collective Memory in Recent French Fiction, Valerie Worth-Stylianou 58 5 Natality, Materiality, Maternity: The Sublime and the Grotesque in Contemporary Sculpture, Christine Battersby 70 Part II: Generation and Relation 83 6 Erasing Mother, Seeking Father: Biotechnological Interventions, Anxieties over Motherhood, and Donor Offspring’s Narratives of Self, Gabriele Griffin 85 7 Mums or Dads? Lesbian Mothers in France, Gill Rye 98 8 The Kinning of the Transnationally Adopted Child in Contemporary Norway, Signe Howell 111 9 Ties That Bind in Tanja Dückers’s Novel Himmelskörper: History, Memory, and Making Sense of Motherhood in Twenty-First-Century Germany, Katherine Stone 124 10 Matrixial Creativity and the Wit(h)nessing of Trauma: Reconnecting Mothers and Daughters in Marosia Castaldi’s Novel Dentro le mie mani le tue: Tetralogia di Nightwater, Adalgisa Giorgio 137 Part III: Experience and Affect 151 11 Publicizing Vulnerability: Motherhood and Affect in Joanna Rajkowska’s Post-2011 Art, Justyna Wierzchowska 153 12 Present and Obscured: Disabled Women as Mothers in Social Policy, Harriet Clarke 169 13 Nuria C. Botey’s Short Story ‘Viviendo con el tío Roy’: Motherhood and Risk Assessment under Duress, Abigail Lee Six 184 14 Broken Nights, Shattered Selves: Maternal Ambivalence and the Ethics of Interruption in Sarah Moss’s Novel Night Waking, Emily Jeremiah 197 15 Uncertain Mothers: Maternal Ambivalence in Alina Marazzi’s Film Tutto parla di te, Claudia Karagoz 210 16 ‘How to Say Hello to the Sea’: Literary Perspectives on Medico-Legal Narratives of Maternal Filicide, Ruth Cain 223 Part IV: Reflections 239 17 To Be or Not To Be (a Mother): Telling Academic and Personal Stories of Mothers and Others, Gayle Letherby 241 18 Last Will and Testament: Potatoes, Love, and Poetry, Ana Luísa Amaral 256 List of Contributors 269 Index 275 For further details and to order the book, see: https://www.routledge.com/Motherhood-in-Literature-and-Culture-Interdisciplinary-Perspectives-from/Rye-Browne-Giorgio-Jeremiah-Lee-Six/p/book/9781138648173 Dr Adalgisa Giorgio Italian Programme Convenor Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies Chair Equality & Diversity Network University of Bath Claverton Down Bath BA2 7AY - UK Tel 01225 386171 Associate Fellow Institute of Modern Languages Research School of Advanced Studies University of London ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: subscribe italian-studies YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: unsubscribe italian-studies to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/italian-studies