College
College of Arts and Sciences
Department
Philosophy and Religious Studies
Rank
Associate Professor
The Maternal Tug: Ambivalence, Identity, and Agency
Type of Work
Book
Publication Information
Edited by Sarah LaChance Adams, Tanya Cassidy, and Susan Hogan.
Ontario, CN: Demeter Press, January 2020
Description of Work
While the existence of maternal ambivalence has been evident for centuries, it has only recently been recognized as central to the lived experience of mothering. This accessible, yet intellectually rigorous, interdisciplinary collection demonstrates its presence and meaning in relation to numerous topics such as pregnancy, birth, Caesarean sections, sleep, self-estrangement, helicopter parenting, poverty, environmental degradation, depression, anxiety, queer mothering, disability, neglect, filicide and war rape. Its authors deny the assumption that mothers who experience ambivalence are bad, evil, unnatural, or insane. Moreover, historical records and cross-cultural narratives indicate that maternal ambivalence appears in a wide range of circumstances; but that it becomes unmanageable in circumstances of inequity, deprivation and violence. From this premise, the authors in this collection raise imperative ethical, social, and political questions, suggesting possibilities for vital cultural transformations. These candid explorations demand we rethink our basic assumptions about how mothering is experienced in everyday life.
Rights Statement
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
The Maternal Tug: Ambivalence, Identity, and Agency
While the existence of maternal ambivalence has been evident for centuries, it has only recently been recognized as central to the lived experience of mothering. This accessible, yet intellectually rigorous, interdisciplinary collection demonstrates its presence and meaning in relation to numerous topics such as pregnancy, birth, Caesarean sections, sleep, self-estrangement, helicopter parenting, poverty, environmental degradation, depression, anxiety, queer mothering, disability, neglect, filicide and war rape. Its authors deny the assumption that mothers who experience ambivalence are bad, evil, unnatural, or insane. Moreover, historical records and cross-cultural narratives indicate that maternal ambivalence appears in a wide range of circumstances; but that it becomes unmanageable in circumstances of inequity, deprivation and violence. From this premise, the authors in this collection raise imperative ethical, social, and political questions, suggesting possibilities for vital cultural transformations. These candid explorations demand we rethink our basic assumptions about how mothering is experienced in everyday life.
Biographical Statement
Sarah LaChance Adams is Florida Blue Distinguished Professor and Director of the Florida Blue Center for Ethics. She is also the Managing Editor for Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy. Mad Mothers, Bad Mothers, and What a “Good” Mother Would Do: The Ethics of Ambivalence (Columbia 2014); and is the coeditor of three anthologies: Coming to Life: Philosophies of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Mothering (Fordham, 2012), New Philosophies of Sex and Love: Thinking through Desire (RLI, 2016). She has reviewed articles, research proposals, and dissertations for institutions in Australia, Israel, Canada, and the United States.