Special Topics in Writing: Motherwork- Reimagining Survival and Joy
3.0
creditsAverage Course Rating
This course departs from Patricia Hill Collins' term “motherwork,” which is reproductive labor that blurs the lines between private and public, family and work to ensure the survival of one’s family and collective community. You are invited to reimagine how maternal health, reproductive justice, and birthing justice frameworks intersect with motherwork. February 2023 data from the National Vital Statistics System states that maternal mortality rates decreased significantly per 100,000 births for White (14.5) and Hispanic women (12.4). However, the mortality rate for Black mothers (50.3) in the United States has not improved. How can this data help shift and reshape your imagination around the possibilities of recreating, restructuring, and rebuilding maternal health and reproductive health(care) networks? How can we define and practice maternal health when divisions between communities and institutions are dismantled? Alongside opportunities for community engagement, this space offers future maternal health (care) workers time to center joy through writing projects that follow Angela Davis’ guidance to “act as if it were possible to radically transform the world.” Student writing may include digital projects, policy proposals, autoethnography, films, and podcasts. Potential authors include Hortense Spillers, Saidiya Hartman, Christina Sharpe, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, Jennifer Nash, and Moya Bailey. All first-year students who have taken Reintro and all students at the sophomore level or above are welcome.
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