Interrogating Motherhood

Download Interrogating Motherhood PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Athabasca University Press
ISBN 13 : 1771991437
Total Pages : 173 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (719 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Interrogating Motherhood by : Lynda R. Ross

Download or read book Interrogating Motherhood written by Lynda R. Ross and published by Athabasca University Press. This book was released on 2016-12-30 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has been four decades since the publication of Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born but her analysis of maternity and the archetypal Mother remains a powerful critique, as relevant today as it was at the time of writing. It was Rich who first defined the term “motherhood” as referent to a patriarchal institution that was male-defined, male controlled, and oppressive to women. To empower women, Rich proposed the use of the word “mothering”: a word intended to be female-defined. It is between these two ideas—that of a patriarchal history and a feminist future—that the introductory text, Interrogating Motherhood, begins. Ross explores the topic of mothering from the perspective of Western society and encourages students and readers to identify and critique the historical, social, and political contexts in which mothers are understood. By examining popular culture, employment, public policy, poverty, “other” mothers, and mental health, Interrogating Motherhood describes the fluid and shifting nature of the practice of mothering and the complex realities that define contemporary women’s lives.

Interrogating Motherhood

Download Interrogating Motherhood PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : SAGE Publications Pvt. Limited
ISBN 13 : 9789381345177
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (451 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Interrogating Motherhood by : Jasodhara Bagchi

Download or read book Interrogating Motherhood written by Jasodhara Bagchi and published by SAGE Publications Pvt. Limited. This book was released on 2017-02-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the many insights of Indian and western feminists analyses of motherhood both as ideology and as practice. Interrogating Motherhood, the fourth title in the Theorizing Feminism Series, reveals that an understanding of motherhood is vitally important to understanding Indian society. The ideas and practice of motherhood changed once India became a part of a global capitalist system. The book analyses motherhood both as ideology and as practice, and the complexities between motherhood and mothering where the concepts are glorified but the women remain subordinate. It further explores Indian and western feminists’ insights, examines the significance of mother goddesses, discusses regulations on motherhood in the wake of nation-building, and reveals the vulnerability of motherhood to the coercion of invasive technology and pressures of patriarchy where a woman must not only be a mother but also the mother of a son.

Rhetorics of Motherhood

Download Rhetorics of Motherhood PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : SIU Press
ISBN 13 : 0809332213
Total Pages : 199 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (93 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Rhetorics of Motherhood by : Lindal Buchanan

Download or read book Rhetorics of Motherhood written by Lindal Buchanan and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2013-04-08 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Becoming a mother profoundly alters one’s perception of the world, as Lindal Buchanan learned firsthand when she gave birth. Suddenly attentive to representations of mothers and mothering in advertisements, fiction, film, art, education, and politics, she became intrigued by the persuasive force of the concept of motherhood, an interest that unleashed a host of questions: How is the construct defined? How are maternal appeals crafted, presented, and performed? What do they communicate about gender and power? How do they affect women? Her quest for answers has produced Rhetorics of Motherhood, the first book-length consideration of the topic through a feminist rhetorical lens. Although both male and female rhetors employ motherhood to promote themselves and their agendas, Buchanan argues it is particularly slippery terrain for women—on the one hand, affording them authority and credibility but, on the other, positioning them disadvantageously within the gendered status quo. Rhetorics of Motherhood investigates that paradox by detailing the cultural construction and performance of the Mother in American public discourse, tracing its use and impact in three case studies, and by theorizing how, when, and why maternal discourses work to women’s benefit or detriment. In the process, the reader encounters a fascinating array of issues—including birth control, civil rights, and abortion—and rhetors, ranging from Diane Nash and Margaret Sanger to Sarah Palin and Michelle Obama. As Buchanan makes clear, motherhood is a rich site for investigating the interrelationships among gender, power, and public discourse. Her latest book contributes to the discipline of rhetoric by attending to and making a convincing case for the significance of this understudied subject. With its examination of timely controversies, contemporary and historical figures, and powerful women, Rhetorics of Motherhood will appeal to a wide array of readers in rhetoric, communications, American studies, women’s studies, and beyond.

La Mamma

Download La Mamma PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 113754256X
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (375 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis La Mamma by : Penelope Morris

Download or read book La Mamma written by Penelope Morris and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-06-07 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of the “mamma italiana” is one of the most widespread and recognizable stereotypes in perceptions of Italian national character both within and beyond Italy. This figure makes frequent appearances in jokes and other forms of popular culture, but it has also been seen as shaping the lived experience of modern-day Italians of both sexes, as well as influencing perceptions of Italy in the wider world. This interdisciplinary collection examines the invented tradition of mammismo but also contextualizes it by discussing other, often contrasting, ways in which the role of mothers, and the mother-son relationship, have been understood and represented in culture and society over the last century and a half, both in Italy and in its diaspora.

Mothering through Precarity

Download Mothering through Precarity PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 082237319X
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (223 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Mothering through Precarity by : Julie A. Wilson

Download or read book Mothering through Precarity written by Julie A. Wilson and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-09 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Mothering through Precarity Julie A. Wilson and Emily Chivers Yochim explore how working- and middle-class mothers negotiate the difficulties of twenty-first-century mothering through their everyday engagement with digital media. From Facebook and Pinterest to couponing, health, and parenting websites, the women Wilson and Yochim study rely upon online resources and communities for material and emotional support. Feeling responsible for their family's economic security, these women often become "mamapreneurs," running side businesses out of their homes. They also feel the need to provide for their family's happiness, making successful mothering dependent upon economic and emotional labor. Questioning these standards of motherhood, Wilson and Yochim demonstrate that mothers' work is inseparable from digital media as it provides them the means for sustaining their families through such difficulties as health scares, underfunded schools, a weakening social safety net, and job losses.

The Golden State

Download The Golden State PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MCD
ISBN 13 : 0374718067
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (747 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Golden State by : Lydia Kiesling

Download or read book The Golden State written by Lydia Kiesling and published by MCD. This book was released on 2018-09-04 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION 5 UNDER 35 PICK. LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION'S FIRST NOVEL PRIZE. Named one of the Best Books of 2018 by NPR, Bookforum and Bustle. One of Entertainment Weekly's 10 Best Debut Novels of 2018. An Amazon Best Book of the Month and named a fall read by Buzzfeed, Nylon, Entertainment Weekly, Elle, Vanity Fair, Vulture, Refinery29 and Mind Body Green A gorgeous, raw debut novel about a young woman braving the ups and downs of motherhood in a fractured America In Lydia Kiesling’s razor-sharp debut novel, The Golden State, we accompany Daphne, a young mother on the edge of a breakdown, as she flees her sensible but strained life in San Francisco for the high desert of Altavista with her toddler, Honey. Bucking under the weight of being a single parent—her Turkish husband is unable to return to the United States because of a “processing error”—Daphne takes refuge in a mobile home left to her by her grandparents in hopes that the quiet will bring clarity. But clarity proves elusive. Over the next ten days Daphne is anxious, she behaves a little erratically, she drinks too much. She wanders the town looking for anyone and anything to punctuate the long hours alone with the baby. Among others, she meets Cindy, a neighbor who is active in a secessionist movement, and befriends the elderly Alice, who has traveled to Altavista as she approaches the end of her life. When her relationships with these women culminate in a dangerous standoff, Daphne must reconcile her inner narrative with the reality of a deeply divided world. Keenly observed, bristling with humor, and set against the beauty of a little-known part of California, The Golden State is about class and cultural breakdowns, and desperate attempts to bridge old and new worlds. But more than anything, it is about motherhood: its voracious worry, frequent tedium, and enthralling, wondrous love.

Know the Mother

Download Know the Mother PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Wayne State University Press
ISBN 13 : 0814341500
Total Pages : 112 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (143 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Know the Mother by : Desiree Cooper

Download or read book Know the Mother written by Desiree Cooper and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-13 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While a mother can be defined as a creator, a nurturer, a protector—at the center of each mother is an individual who is attempting to manage her own fears, desires, and responsibilities in different and sometimes unexpected ways. In Know the Mother, author Desiree Cooper explores the complex archetype of the mother in all of her incarnations. In a collage of meditative stories, women—both black and white—find themselves wedged between their own yearnings and their roles as daughters, sisters, grandmothers, and wives. In this heart-wrenching collection, Cooper reveals that gender and race are often unanticipated interlopers in family life. An anxious mother reflects on her prenatal fantasies of suicide while waiting for her daughter to come home late one night. A lawyer miscarries during a conference call and must proceed as though nothing has happened. On a rare night out with her husband, a new mother tries convincing herself that everything is still the same. A politician’s wife’s thoughts turn to slavery as she contemplates her own escape: “Even Harriet Tubman had realized that freedom wasn’t worth the price of abandoning her family, so she’d come back home. She’d risked it all for love.” With her lyrical and carefully crafted prose, Cooper’s stories provide truths without sermon and invite empathy without sentimentality. Know the Mother explores the intersection of race and gender in vignettes that pull you in and then are gone in an instant. Readers of short fiction will appreciate this deeply felt collection.

Reassembling Motherhood

Download Reassembling Motherhood PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231538073
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Reassembling Motherhood by : Yasmine Ergas

Download or read book Reassembling Motherhood written by Yasmine Ergas and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-10 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The word “mother” traditionally meant a woman who bears and nurtures a child. In recent decades, changes in social norms and public policy as well as advances in reproductive technologies and the development of markets for procreation and care have radically expanded definitions of motherhood. But while maternity has become a matter of choice for more women, the freedom to make reproductive decisions is unevenly distributed. Restrictive policies, socioeconomic disadvantages, cultural mores, and discrimination force some women into motherhood and prevent others from caring for their children. Reassembling Motherhood brings together contributors from across the disciplines to consider the transformation of motherhood as both an identity and a role. It examines how the processes of bearing and rearing a child are being restructured as reproductive labor and care work change around the globe. The authors examine issues such as artificial reproductive technologies, surrogacy, fetal ultrasounds, adoption, nonparental care, and the legal status of kinship, showing how complex chains of procreation and childcare have simultaneously generated greater liberty and new forms of constraint. Emphasizing the tension between the liberalization of procreation and care on the one hand, and the limits to their democratization due to race, class, and global inequality on the other, the book highlights debates that have emerged as these multifaceted changes have led to both the fragmentation and reassembling of motherhood.

Like a Mother

Download Like a Mother PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062662961
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (626 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Like a Mother by : Angela Garbes

Download or read book Like a Mother written by Angela Garbes and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-05-29 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A candid, feminist, and personal deep dive into the science and culture of pregnancy and motherhood Like most first-time mothers, Angela Garbes was filled with questions when she became pregnant. What exactly is a placenta and how does it function? How does a body go into labor? Why is breast best? Is wine totally off-limits? But as she soon discovered, it’s not easy to find satisfying answers. Your obstetrician will cautiously quote statistics; online sources will scare you with conflicting and often inaccurate data; and even the most trusted books will offer information with a heavy dose of judgment. To educate herself, the food and culture writer embarked on an intensive journey of exploration, diving into the scientific mysteries and cultural attitudes that surround motherhood to find answers to questions that had only previously been given in the form of advice about what women ought to do—rather than allowing them the freedom to choose the right path for themselves. In Like a Mother, Garbes offers a rigorously researched and compelling look at the physiology, biology, and psychology of pregnancy and motherhood, informed by in-depth reportage and personal experience. With the curiosity of a journalist, the perspective of a feminist, and the intimacy and urgency of a mother, she explores the emerging science behind the pressing questions women have about everything from miscarriage to complicated labors to postpartum changes. The result is a visceral, full-frontal look at what’s really happening during those nine life-altering months, and why women deserve access to better care, support, and information. Infused with humor and born out of awe, appreciation, and understanding of the female body and its strength, Like a Mother debunks common myths and dated assumptions, offering guidance and camaraderie to women navigating one of the biggest and most profound changes in their lives.

I'm Just Happy to Be Here

Download I'm Just Happy to Be Here PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Hachette Books
ISBN 13 : 0316549436
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (165 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis I'm Just Happy to Be Here by : Janelle Hanchett

Download or read book I'm Just Happy to Be Here written by Janelle Hanchett and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A refreshingly raw, contrasting perspective on the foolproof idea of motherhood." -- POPSUGAR "By turns painful and funny... A searingly candid memoir." -- Kirkus "Far from your cookie-cutter story of addiction . . . [I'm Just Happy to Be Here] describes Hanchett's journey to recovery and sobriety in imperfect and unconventional ways." -- Bustle In this unflinching and wickedly funny memoir, Janelle Hanchett tells the story of finding her way home. And then, actually staying there. Drawing us into the wild, heartbreaking mind of the addict, Hanchett carries us from motherhood at 21 with a man she'd known three months to cubicles and whiskey-laden domesticity, from judging meth addicts in rehab to therapists who "seem to pull diagnoses out of large, expensive hats." With warmth, wit, and searing B.S. detectors turned mostly toward herself, Hanchett invites us to laugh when we probably shouldn't and to rejoice at the unconventional redemption she finds in desperation and in a misfit mentor who forces her to see the truth of herself. A story of ego and forced humility, of fierce honesty and jagged love, of the kind of failure that forces us to re-create our lives, Hanchett writes with rare candor, scorching the "sanctity of motherhood," and leaving beauty in the ashes.

Interrogating Pregnancy Loss: Feminst Writings on Abortion, Miscarriage and Stillbirth

Download Interrogating Pregnancy Loss: Feminst Writings on Abortion, Miscarriage and Stillbirth PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Demeter Press
ISBN 13 : 1772581569
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (725 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Interrogating Pregnancy Loss: Feminst Writings on Abortion, Miscarriage and Stillbirth by : R.M. Lind

Download or read book Interrogating Pregnancy Loss: Feminst Writings on Abortion, Miscarriage and Stillbirth written by R.M. Lind and published by Demeter Press. This book was released on 2017-11-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whereas biomedical and feminist literature treat abortion, miscarriage, and stillbirth as differently conceptualized events, this collection explores the connections between these three categories. How have feminist debates and strategies around reproductive choice invigorated the cultural conversation about miscarriage and stillbirth? How can we imagine more nuanced engagements with the spectrum of experiences that are at stake when a pregnancy ends? And how can we effectively create a space where pregnant people contend with the ways that loss makes meaning for those who grieve and/or celebrate the end of pregnancy? This collection centres pregnancy loss as an embodied and social phenomenon within a framework that understands pregnancy as a process with no guaranteed outcomes. Interrogating Pregnancy Loss considers pregnancy as an epistemic source, one that has the capacity to reveal the limits of our collective assumptions about temporality, expectation, narrative, and social legitimacy. By interrogating loss, this collection argues that the lessons learned from loss have the capacity to serve our collective understandings of both the expected and unexpected rhythms of social and reproductive life.

Feminist Economics

Download Feminist Economics PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Feminist Economics by : Gillian J. Hewitson

Download or read book Feminist Economics written by Gillian J. Hewitson and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 1999 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hewitson (business, La Trobe U., Australia) uses a feminist poststructuralist approach to expose the masculinity of the allegedly unsexed figure of the neoclassical "rational economic man". Employing a wide range of poststructuralist writings, she argues that neoclassical economics does construct sexual differences and that the notion of the exchanging agent, commonly perceived as a universal and sexless individual, cannot accommodate sexual differences, thus concluding that neoclassical economics cannot accommodate women's differences.

A Life's Work

Download A Life's Work PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Picador
ISBN 13 : 1466891637
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (668 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis A Life's Work by : Rachel Cusk

Download or read book A Life's Work written by Rachel Cusk and published by Picador. This book was released on 2015-02-17 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Notable Book, A Life’s Work: On Becoming a Mother is multi-award-winning author Rachel Cusk’s honest memoir that captures the life-changing wonders of motherhood. Selected by the New York Times as one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years The experience of motherhood is an experience in contradiction. It is commonplace and it is impossible to imagine. It is prosaic and it is mysterious. It is at once banal, bizarre, compelling, tedious, comic, and catastrophic. To become a mother is to become the chief actor in a drama of human existence to which no one turns up. It is the process by which an ordinary life is transformed unseen into a story of strange and powerful passions, of love and servitude, of confinement and compassion. In a book that is touching, hilarious, provocative, and profoundly insightful, novelist Rachel Cusk attempts to tell something of an old story set in a new era of sexual equality. Cusk’s account of a year of modern motherhood becomes many stories: a farewell to freedom, sleep, and time; a lesson in humility and hard work; a journey to the roots of love; a meditation on madness and mortality; and most of all a sentimental education in babies, books, toddler groups, bad advice, crying, breastfeeding, and never being alone. “Funny and smart and refreshingly akin to a war diary—sort of Apocalypse Baby Now...A Life’s Work is wholly original and unabashedly true.”—The New York Times Book Review

Mothering in the Age of Neoliberalism

Download Mothering in the Age of Neoliberalism PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Demeter Press
ISBN 13 : 1927335744
Total Pages : 404 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (273 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Mothering in the Age of Neoliberalism by : Giles Melinda Vandenbeld

Download or read book Mothering in the Age of Neoliberalism written by Giles Melinda Vandenbeld and published by Demeter Press. This book was released on 2014-03-01 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Neoliberal policies and austerity measures have unequivocally altered the landscape of women’s lives globally. The most detrimental effect has been on mothers as they are faced with increasing responsibility and decreasing resources. Despite mothers being the primary producers, consumers, and repro- ducers of the neoliberal world, their centrality has been largely silenced within economic discourse. Thus, Mothering in the Age of Neoliberalism calls for a new economic framework to counter the individualized neoliberal model, one in which the needs of mothers and children are prioritized. This volume provides a crucial starting point. By identifying the sources of neoliberal failure toward mothers, we can begin to collectively formulate an alternative paradigm in which mothers’ voices are no longer rendered invisible, but rather predominate in the global landscape.

Motherhood

Download Motherhood PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 1503612317
Total Pages : 194 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (36 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Motherhood by : Natalie Carnes

Download or read book Motherhood written by Natalie Carnes and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A meditation on the conversions, betrayals, and divine revelations of motherhood. What if Augustine's Confessions had been written not by a man, but by a mother? How might her tales of desire, temptation, and transformation differ from his? In this memoir, Natalie Carnes describes giving birth to a daughter and beginning a story of conversion strikingly unlike Augustine's—even as his journey becomes a surprising companion to her own. The challenges Carnes recounts will be familiar to many parents. She wonders what and how much she should ask her daughter to suffer in resisting racism, patriarchy, and injustice. She wrestles with an impulse to compel her child to flourish, and reflects on what this desire reveals about human freedom. She negotiates the conflicting demands of a religiously divided home, a working motherhood, and a variety of social expectations, and traces the hopes and anxieties such negotiations expose. The demands of motherhood continually open for her new modes of reflection about deep Christian commitments and age-old human questions. Addressing first her child and then her God, Carnes narrates how a child she once held within her body grows increasingly separate, provoking painful but generative change. Having given birth, she finds that she herself is reborn.

Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History

Download Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393253767
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (932 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History by : Camille T. Dungy

Download or read book Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History written by Camille T. Dungy and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist A 2018 Colorado Book Award Finalist As a working mother and poet-lecturer, Camille Dungy’s livelihood depended on travel. She crisscrossed America and beyond with her daughter in tow, history shadowing their steps, always intensely aware of how they were perceived, not just as mother and child but as black women. From the San Francisco of settlers’ dreams to the slave-trading ports of Ghana, from snow-white Maine to a festive yet threatening bonfire in the Virginia pinewoods, Dungy finds fear and trauma but also mercy, kindness, and community. Penetrating and generous, this is an essential guide for a troubled land.

Italian Motherhood on Screen

Download Italian Motherhood on Screen PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 331956675X
Total Pages : 293 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (195 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Italian Motherhood on Screen by : Giovanna Faleschini Lerner

Download or read book Italian Motherhood on Screen written by Giovanna Faleschini Lerner and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-10-14 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first scholarly analysis that considers the specificity of situated experiences of the maternal from a variety of theoretical perspectives. From “Fertility Day” to “Family Day,” the concept of motherhood has been at the center of the public debate in contemporary Italy, partly in response to the perceived crisis of the family, the economic crisis, and the crisis of national identity, provoked by the forces of globalization and migration, secularization, and the instability of labor markets. Through essays by an international cohort of established and emerging scholars, this volume aims to read these shifts in cinematic terms. How does Italian cinema represent, negotiate, and elaborate changing definitions of motherhood in narrative, formal, and stylistic terms? The essays in this volume focus on the figures of working mothers, women who opt for a child-free adulthood, single mothers, ambivalent mothers, lost mothers, or imperfect mothers, who populate contemporary screen narratives.