Maternal Theory: Essential Readings, The 2nd Edition





Price: $94.95

Page Count: 936

Publication Date: July 2021

ISBN: 978-1-77258-383-0

Theory on mothers, mothering and motherhood has emerged as a distinct body of knowledge within Motherhood Studies and Feminist Theory more generally. This collection, The Second Edition of Maternal Theory: Essential Readings introduces readers to this rich and diverse tradition of maternal theory. Composed of 60 chapters the 2nd edition includes two sections: the first with the classic texts by Adrienne Rich, Nancy Chodorow, Sara Ruddick, Alice Walker, Barbara Katz Rothman, bell hooks, Sharon Hays, Patricia Hill-Collins, Audre Lorde, Daphne de Marneffe, Judith Warner, Patrice diQinizio, Susan Maushart, and many more. The second section includes thirty new chapters on vital and new topics including Trans Parenting, Non-Binary Parenting, Queer Mothering, Matricentric Feminism, Normative Motherhood, Maternal Subjectivity, Maternal Narratology, Maternal Ambivalence, Maternal Regret, Monstrous Mothers, The Migrant Maternal, Reproductive Justice, Feminist Mothering, Feminist Fathering, Indigenous Mothering, The Digital Maternal, The Opt-Out Revolution, Black Motherhoods, Motherlines, The Motherhood Memoir, Pandemic Mothering, and many more. Maternal Theory is essential reading for anyone interested in motherhood as experience, ideology, and identity.

“We have been hungry for a text that unfolds mother theorizing as both evolutionary and revolutionary. O’Reilly lays out in this reader a sumptuous feast. A broad array of maternal theory staples and delicacies--more than you can digest in one sitting.”
- Amber E. Kinser, Ph.D., Women’s Studies, East Tennessee State University

Introduction, by Andrea O’Reilly

SECTION ONE

1. Introduction from Of Woman Born, by Adrienne Rich
2. Anger and Tenderness, by Adrienne Rich
3. Early Psychological Development: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender, by Nancy Chodorow
4. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, by Alice Walker
5. Maternal Thinking, by Sara Ruddick
6. Revolutionary Parenting, by bell hooks
7. Homeplace, by bell hooks
8. Man Child: A Black Lesbian Feminist’s Response, by Audre Lorde
9. The Radical Potential in Lesbian Mothering of Daughters, by Baba Copper
10. It’s Only Natural, by Valerie Walkerdine and Helen Lucey
11. Unspeakable Plots, by Marianne Hirsch
12. The Meaning of Motherhood in Black Culture and Black Mother-Daughter Relationships, by Patricia Hill Collins
13. Shifting the Center: Race, Class and Feminist Theorizing About Motherhood, by Patricia Hill Collins
14. The Myths of Motherhood, by Shari L.Thurer
15. Beyond Mothers and Fathers: Ideology in a Patriarchal Society, by Barbara Katz Rothman
16. Why Can’t a Mother Be More Like a Businessman?, by Sharon Hays
17. A Sketch in Progress: Introducing the Mother Without Child, by Elaine Tuttle Hansen
18. Faking Motherhood: The Mask Revealed, by Susan Maushart
19. Mothering and Feminism: Essential Mothering and the Dilemma of Difference, by Patrice DiQuinzio
20. The Omnipotent Mother: A Psychoanalytic Study of Fantasy and Reality, by Jessica Benjamin
21. Don’t Blame Mother: Then and Now, by Paula J. Caplan
22. The New Momism, by Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels
23. The “Problem” of Maternal Desire, by Daphne de Marneffe
24. The Motherhood Religion, by Judith Warner
25. Domestic Intellectuals: Freedom and the Single Mom, by Jane Juffer
26. High Risk: Who a Mother Should Be, by Ariel Gore
27. Resisting, But Not Too Much: Interrogating the Paradox of Natural Mothering, by
Chris Bobel
28. Con el Palote en Una Mano y el Libro en la Otra, by, Larissa Mercado-López

SECTION TWO

29. Matricentric Feminism, by Andrea O’Reilly
30. Normative Motherhood, by Andrea O’Reilly
31. Maternal Subjectivity, by Alison Stone
32. Post Maternal Subjectivity, by Julie Stephens
33. The Sexual Contract, by Petra Bueskens
34. Wives: Detangling Wifehood and Motherhood, by Lynn Hallstein O’Brien
35. Maternal Ambivalence, by Sarah LaChance Adams
36. Maternal Regret, by Andrea O’Reilly
37. Monstrous Mothers, by Abby Palko
38. Feminist Fathering: Why it Should Matter to all who Mother, by Nicole L. Willey and Dan Friedman
39. Empowered/Feminist Mothering, by Andrea O’Reilly
40. Maternal Activism, by Danielle Poe
41. The Motherline, by Fiona Joy Green
42. Young Mothers, by Sarah Bekaert
43. Disabled Mothers, by Gloria Filax and Dena Taylor
44. Black Motherhoods, by Kimberly Seals Allers
45. Indigenous Mothers, by Kim Anderson and Jennifer Brant
46. The Migrant Maternal, by Anna Kuroczycka Schultes and Helen Vallianatos
47. Cosmopolitan Maternalisms, by Bittiandra Chand Somaiah
48. Reproductive Justice, by Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz and Lina-Maria Murillo,
49. NeoLiberalism, Globalization, and Mothering, by Melinda Vandenbeld Giles
50. Queer Possibilities: Unnatural Mothers and Other Aberrations by Shelley M. Park
51. Forging Crossroads: The Possibilities and Complexities of Parenting Outside the Gender Binary, by Olivia Fischer
52.. Trans Parenting, by Damien W. Riggs, Sally Hines, Ruth Pearce, and Carla A. Pfeffer,
53. Non Motherhoods, by Julie Ann Rodgers
54. Adoption Mandate, by Valerie Andrews
55. The Maternal Journey: Defining and Constructing a Maternal Narratology, by Megan Rogers
56 The Motherhood Memoir, by Nicole L. Willey and Justine Dymond
57. The Digital Maternal, by Lorin Basden Arnold and BettyAnn Martin
58. The Opt-Out Revolution, by Jennifer L. Borda
59. The Juggling Mother, by Amanda Watson
60. Pandemic Mothering, by Fiona Joy Green and Andrea O’Reilly

Andrea O’Reilly, PhD, is full professor in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at York University, founder and director of The Motherhood Initiative(1998-2019), founder/editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Motherhood Initiative and publisher of Demeter Press. She is coeditor/editor of twenty-three books including Feminist Perspectives on Young Mothers and Mothering (2019) Feminist Parenting: Perspectives from African and Beyond (2020) and Mothers, Mothering, and COVID-19: Dispatches from a Pandemic (2021).She is editor of the Encyclopedia on Motherhood (2010) and coeditor of the Routledge Companion to Motherhood (2019). She is author of Toni Morrison and Motherhood: A Politics of the Heart (2004); Rocking the Cradle: Thoughts on Motherhood, Feminism, and the Possibility of Empowered Mothering (2006); and Matricentric Feminism: Theory, Activism, and Practice, The 2nd edition (2021). She has presented her research at over one hundred conferences, has authored eighty articles/chapters and has received more than a million dollars in grant funding for her research projects. She is twice the recipient of York University’s “Professor of the Year Award” for teaching excellence and is the 2019 recipient of the Status of Women and Equity Award of Distinction from OCUFA (Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations).