Call for Papers
Demeter Press
is seeking submissions for an edited collection on

Disability and Mothering

Publication Date: Spring 2010
Editors: Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson and Jen Cellio

We are excited to be editing an interdisciplinary book on disability and
mothering. We seek papers that explore the histories, practices, theories
and lived realities of mothering and disability as they run parallel to,
intersect with, complicate, and inform one another. Both disability and
mothering are liminal experiences, placing one at a threshold or doorway,
a boundary, verge, or margin that marks a potential interval of difference
offering an opening to new perspectives. Doorways and thresholds represent
spaces for transition and transformation, the possibility for sharing
experiences and the fluidity of identity, in the crossing back and forth
from one perspective to another. As a liminal experience, “mothering” can
be thought of as an attitude or orientation, a set of practices arising
out of relationality, rather than a stable identity. New reproductive
technologies also expand definitions of “mothering,” but also raise
questions about the future of the fetus marked “disabled” as well as the
lives of people living with disability in an age of genetic screening. A
key goal of this volume will be to examine the productive tensions brought
to view by pairing mothering and disability.

We welcome varied approaches from across the humanities and social
sciences including, but not limited to:
• personal and reflective essays;
• theoretical, historical, cultural, feminist, maternal, transgender
and queer studies;
• ethnographies;
• material cultural studies of such topics asâ€"
Activism; bioethics, feminist ethics; constructions of identity, changes
in identity, hybridity theories of identity; corporate workplace policies,
insurance, day care, institutional care; disability/mothering in global
and transnational contextsâ€"e.g. immigration, diaspora, citizenship,
national identity, homelessness; embodiment theories; feminist
philosophies of care, dependency, or interdependency; film and media
representations; ideological and social debates and tensions within
discussions of “good” mothering/disability; issues of mothering/disability
as they intersect with race, class, gender, nation; legal or scientific
histories; medical critiques; navigation of space, movement, access and
design of spaces; “normalcy” as a construct that impacts
mothering/disability; politics and public polices; poverty; queer and/or
transgender theories; reproduction/ reproductive rights; the role of web
communities; the spiritual, emotional or social impact; support services,
self-sponsored communities and institutions.

Abstracts/Proposals (300-500 words) due: June 1, 2008
Acceptances made by June 30, 2008
Accepted and completed papers (15 pp. double-spaced, MLA format) due:
September 30, 2008
Authors with disabilities, or who have family members with disabilities,
are especially encouraged to contribute. Please send inquiries and
abstracts, along with a brief CV, to: Editors, Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson at
lewiecc_at_muohio.edu and/or Jen Cellio at celliojl_at_muohio.edu

About the editors:

Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson, the mother of an adult son, born with a
disability, is a professor of English and Affiliate of the Women’s Studies
Program at Miami University. Her research and teaching focus on
composition and rhetoric, disability studies, and feminism. She is the
author or co-editor of articles, book chapters, and several books, among
them, Disability and the Teaching of Writing: A Critical Sourcebook
(Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008); and Embodied Rhetorics: Disability in
Language and Culture (Southern Illinois UP, 2001). She is a founder, with
five other faculty, of the Disability Studies minor at Miami.

Jen Cellio is a Ph.D. candidate at Miami University where she studies
rhetorical theory, rhetorics of science, women’s rhetorics, and
composition theory. Her dissertation, entitled ‘More children from the
fit, less from the unfit’: Discourses of Hereditary ‘Fitness’ and
Reproductive Rhetorics, post Darwin to the 21st Century, examines
arguments used during the eugenics movement to curb or encourage the
reproductive practices of particular groups of women.

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Received on Mon Feb 25 2008 - 11:24:43 EST