3.0

credits

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What makes a “bad” mother? Are bad mothers doomed to be bad, or are they produced by their circumstances? Why did so many nineteenth-century texts fixate on the different ways in which maternity could be flawed? This course pursues these questions in order to consider the psychology and politics of motherhood, an identity and a performance that for some has been synonymous with womanhood itself. Even as our primary texts naturalize and idealize motherhood, they encounter again and again maternity’s instability, its undesirability, its pain, its banality, and its failures. To dive into these questions, we will turn to twentieth- and twenty-first century theorists—including Sigmund Freud, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Jacqueline Rose, and bell hooks—for their insights about how individuals and societies think about mothers. Starting with maternal archetypes like the Grimms’ Evil Stepmother and the classical infanticide Medea, our primary texts will include works by Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Thomas Hardy, Virginia Woolf, Amy Tan, and at least one recent film/TV episode (TBD). Assignments include short reflections, one presentation, and one final research paper.