Of Monsters and Mothers: Challenging Representations and Theories of Maternity in Literature
This panel, "Of Monsters and Mothers: Challenging Representations and Theories of Maternity in Literature," seeks to explore how literature complicates, subverts, and redefines conventional understandings of motherhood. From monstrous maternal figures to radical reimaginings of care, the maternal body has long been a contested site of power, anxiety, and transformation in literary texts. We invite interdisciplinary perspectives that engage with literature across historical periods and genres, drawing from feminist, psychoanalytic, postcolonial, disability, and queer theories to interrogate the intersections of motherhood, agency, and monstrosity.