Alice H. Deakins (Ph.D., Columbia University) teaches in the English Department at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey. Her areas of research include gender and language, pedagogical grammar, and mothers and daughters in literature. She has served as president of the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender (OSCLG) and the International Linguistic Association (ILA).Rebecca Bryant Lockridge (Ph.D., Ohio State University) teaches in the Communication and Media Studies Department and Women and Gender Studies Program at the University of Southern Maine. Her research interests include the epistemology of visual communication, rhetoric of gender, and feminism and film. She is affiliated with Maine Women’s Studies Consortium, American Association of University Women, and National Women’s Studies Association. Helen M. Sterk (Ph.D., University of Iowa) heads the Department of Communication at Western Kentucky University. She is widely published in rhetoric and women’s studies. Her most recent book is Gender, Culture and Physicality: Paradoxes and Taboos (Lexington Books, 2009).

Written by scholars who identify as mothers and daughters, the original studies in this multidisciplinary volume offer incisive, thoughtful explorations into the everyday experiences that make mother-daughter communication so significant.

• AcknowledgementsForewordBrinlee Kramer with Cheris Kramarae and Jana KramerIntroductionHelen M. Sterk and Alice H. DeakinsSECTION I:THE TENACITY OF CONNECTIONChapter One: Birthing: Daughters’ Transitions to MotherhoodHelen M. Sterk and Rita L. Feikema Chapter Two: Reconnections for Life Enhancement: Daughters After Mother LossDeborah A. O’Neil and Susan Schick CaseChapter Three: Embodying Resistance, Enforcing Obedience: Mother-Daughter Relationships in Recent Indo-Anglian FictionRajender KaurChapter Four: Mothers and Daughters: Glimpses Through TimeAlice H. DeakinsSECTION II:IMPEDIMENTS TO CONNECTIONChapter Five: Two of Me: Mothers and Daughters in ConnectionMichelle Miller-DayChapter Six: Mother Care/Daughter Care: The Bridge That Is My BackRebecca Bryant Lockridge and Sarah LockridgeChapter Seven: The 80hoo Generation: Rethinking Their Mother-Daughter Relationships During Childhood in ChinaXue Yongling with Mei ZhongChapter Eight: Voices from the Andes: Jaqi Mothers and DaughtersM. J. Hardman and Shumaya Martha Bautista HardmanSECTION III:CREATING AND MAINTAINING CONNECTIONSChapter Nine: On the Transition from Childhood to Womanhood: Constructing Coming of Age Rituals in U.S. American CultureDeborah S. Ballard-Reisch, Alyssa C. Ballard-Reisch, and Jackie Silviera-SaterChapter Ten: “Pecked to Death by Ducks”: Managing Dialectal Tensions in the Mother-Adolescent Daughter RelationshipBarbara PeningtonChapter Eleven: Negotiation of Attachment/Separation Tension in Relationships Between Mothers and Daughters Who Are Pursuing Careers in AcademiaMarjorie A. Jaasma, Frances Jeffries, and Keith NainbyChapter Twelve: An Untold Story: Mothers’ and Daughters’ Connections through FoodMiriam MeyersChapter Thirteen: Constructing the Grandmother-Granddaughter Relationship through Communication: A Review of the Relevant LiteratureLynn H. TurnerSECTION IV:MOTHER-DAUGHTER CONNECTIONS AROUND THE WORLDChapter Fourteen: Mothers and Daughters in the Global VillageAlice H. DeakinsWorks CitedAuthor BiographiesIndex