File spoon-archives/marxism-feminism.archive/marxism-feminism_1997/marxism-feminism.9705, message 42


Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 20:46:08 -0500
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu>
Subject: M-FEM: The Politics of Motherhood


In light of the recent exchange about motherhood and political
consciousness, the book mentioned in the message below might be of interest
to the list members. Has anybody read it?

Yoshie

>Date:         Tue, 20 May 1997 10:28:24 EDT
>Sender: H-Net Labor History Discussion List <H-LABOR-AT-h-net.msu.edu>
>From: Seth Wigderson <SETHW-AT-MAINE.MAINE.EDU>

>    On May 30th at 6:00 (sharp) there will be a reception for _The
>Politics of Motherhood: Activist Voices from Left to Right_ edited by
>Alexis Jetter, Annelise Orleck, & Diana Taylor (Dartmouth/University
>of New England Press, 1997).  Among the contributors reading from
>their pieces will be Kathy Dobie, Temma Kaplan, Grace Paley, and Sara
>Ruddick.
>
>    Alexis Jetter is a widely published journalist whose work has
>appeared in _The New York Times Magazine_, _Vogue_, _The Village
>Voice_, and _The Nation_.  Annelise Orleck is Associate Professor of
>History at Dartmouth College and author of _Common Sense and a Little
>Fire_ (1995) [and an NYU PhD].  Diana Taylor is Professor of Spanish
>and Chair of COmparative Literature at Dartmouth, author of
>_Disappearing Acts_ (1996) and other books, an co-editor of
>_Negotiating Performance_ (1994).
>
>>From the cover:
>
>    Perhaps the most deeply rooted stereotype of motherhood, editor
>Annelise Orleck writes, is the "notion that mothers are by definition
>apolitical, isolated with their children in a world of pure emotion,
>far removed from the welter of poltics and social struggle."  This
>collection of essays, interviews, and personal narratives challenges
>the image of the isolated madonna and child, and explodes the myth
>that bearing and raising children alters a woman's consciousness in
>some fundamentally conservative way, silencing her voice and
>disarming her rebellion.
>
>    Instead, these contributors demonstrate that motherhood often
>redefines and revitalizes a women's political consciousness.  From
>Love Canal to the Kenyan countryside, from a public housing project
>in Las Vegas to a plaza in Buenos Aires, from a Minnesota Indian
>reservation to the radicalizing events differ but the effects are the
>same.  By examining the characteristics, effects, contradictions, and
>prices of "motherist" politics, we can begin to understand the forces
>that bring these women out from behind their curtains.
>
>There will be refreshments and paperback copies of the books
>available for purchase at a discount.
>
>
>Andrew H. Lee
>leea-AT-elmer1.bobst.nyu.edu
>Tamiment Library                 "Neant, la Mecque des bibliotheques!"
>New York University                   Jules Laforgue, Salome
>70 Washington Square South
>New York, New York 10012
>(212) 998-2633
>



   

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