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Disjointed Perspectives on Motherhood/ Pedagogies of the Reversed Maternal Image (Collection)
Editor: Catalina Florina Florescu, PhD

NB: There is NO specific time frame for this collection. Rather, we intend to look at various non-standard perspectives on motherhood as described during different times and as pertaining to many genres and media. For full description of this collection, please read the information presented below.

Description:
All mothers to be included in this collection have suffered a major physical and/or psychical traumatic accident, and, as a consequence, their minds and bodies have been drastically changed. They live under the pressure of having discovered the alter ego of their traumatized personality, and now, distressed, cannot fulfill or embrace their role as mothers with unconditional love. They undergo a phase where they are pressured to face the challenge of discovering who they are as persons before they accept or motivate themselves as mothers. Furthermore, they also seem to have another thing in common, that is, their transnational, fluid female identity as they enter into an imaginary dialogue that transcends those restricted perspectives on womanhood and motherhood.

Objectives
This collection introduces and analyzes recurrent words that define a woman’s body and mind today: fear, competition, motherhood versus fatherhood and career rights, selfishness, ambition, destruction, distance, identity, etc. By using unprecedented comparative critical approaches, such as phenomenological, medical, feminist, and re-enchantment theories, and by choosing for analysis works from literature, cinema, and visual arts, this collection attempts to “destroy” a canonical concept with the noble intention to revitalize an otherwise taken-for-granted image (and role).

Suggested Primary Works (NB: Please consider this list as guidance and feel free to suggest other primary works) Euripides’ Bacchae; Ingmar Bergman’s Autumn Sonata ; Siddiq Barmak’s Osama; Augusten Burroughs’ Running with Scissors; Fatih Akin’s The Edge of Heaven; Dennis Lehane’s Gone, Baby, Gone; Tillie Olsen's “I Stand Here Ironing”; Judith Thompson’s Tornado; Buchi Emecheta's Second-Class Citizen; Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions; Ma Xiaoying's Gone Is the One Who Held Me the Dearest in the World; Yasmina Reza, God of Carnage; Sapphire, Push; Joan Didion, Blue Nights; Michael Cristofer, The Shadow Box; Eugene O’Neill’s Long day’s Journey into Night; etc.

If interested, please send me your short bio and abstracts of 500-700 words by May 15th. Full essays of 6,000-9,000 words to be expected by December 1st. Dr. Catalina Florina Florescu is the author of two books, several book chapters and numerous essays. Contact information: plutesc@aol.com