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Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal: Mothering in the 21st Century

Guest Editors: Annalisa Zox-Weaver and Elizabeth Callaghan

Women’s Studies currently seeks submissions for a special issue exploring contemporary
motherhood. The issue will have an interdisciplinary approach, and we therefore encourage
articles that deal with the literary, social, psychological, racial, cultural, and/or legal aspects of
contemporary American motherhood. We are also interested in first-person narratives of
personal experiences in mothering.

American culture is saturated with discourses about what it means to be a mother. This issue
seeks to unpack the ways in which these conversations and ideologies shape the lived
experiences of mothers as well as the concepts and idealization of mothers’ identities.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Mothering Literature: Dr. Sears, Vicki Iovine, What to Expect… the number of mothering
manuals has exploded in recent years. Even the author of Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems,
Richard Ferber, has become a verb as parents “Ferberize” their children. What ideologies about
motherhood circulate in these manuals? What kinds of debates do they engage in, and what do
they suggest about parental identity?

• Mothering and Nannying: The recent proliferation of parental advice reality shows like
“Nanny 911” and “Supernanny” has produced a new discourse surrounding the relationship
between mothers and nannies. How has the role of the nanny as parenting guru affected the
way we view mothers, child care, children?

• Mothering and governmental and public policy: quality of life, societal/economic/political
support, welfare moms

• Mothering and media: cultural obsessions with pregnancy, bad mothering, body images and
mothering

• Ideologies and philosophies of mothering: attachment parenting, RIE, Waldorf

• Motherhood and class: In what ways do the current debates about what it means to be a
mother marginalize, occlude, or pathologize the experiences of working-class mothers?

• Mommy wars: competitive mothering and hyper-parenting, Mommy Martyrs, “have it all”
mommies

• Marketing to mothers: conspicuous consumption, the commercialization of motherhood

• Gender questions: mothering vs. fathering vs. parenting, co-parenting, custody issues

• Mothering and medicine, the medicalization of children and trends in diagnosis—autism,
ADHD, ADD, treatment for cholesterol, children as little adults, reproductive technologies,
therapy culture

• Mothering and the law: How have legal questions surrounding vaccinations, child care,
abuse, adoption, and parental custody shaped the image of mothers?

• Motherhood in the academy

• Motherhood and religion/spirituality

• Motherhood and feminism

Please submit papers of no more than twenty pages, along with an abstract of 100 - 200 words,
to Annalisa Zox-Weaver and Elizabeth Callaghan at MotheringIssue_at_rocketmail.com.
Submissions are due November 15, 2008.

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Received on Mon Aug 11 2008 - 23:20:41 EDT