From Motherhood to Mothering

Andrea O'Reilly is Associate Professor in the School of Women's Studies at York University and Director of the Association for Research on Mothering. She is the author and editor of several books on mothering, including Toni Morrison and Motherhood: A Politics of the Heart, also published by SUNY Press; Mothers and Sons: Feminism, Masculinity, and the Struggle to Raise Our Sons; and Mother Outlaws: Theories and Practices of Empowered Mothering.

"This book is a thought-provoking array of disparate though wide-ranging essays." — Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering"…the essays are diverse in discipline and tone." — University of Toronto Quarterly"I can hardly imagine a more relevant or more universal subject. O'Reilly examines not only how Rich's book changed scholars' views of motherhood, but also how it changed their voices—adding a chorus of personal insight to their professional and academic research findings." — Mary Kay Blakely, author of American Mom: Motherhood, Politics, and Humble Pie

• Acknowledgments IntroductionAndrea O'Reilly PART ONE: Motherhood as Institution: Patriarchal Power and Maternal Outrage 1. The Supreme Court of Canada and What It Means to Be "Of Woman Born"Diana Ginn 2. Of Party-State Born: Motherhood, Reproductive Politics, and the Chinese Nation-StateSarah E. Stevens 3. Murderous Mothers: Adrienne Rich's Of Woman Born and Toni Morrison's BelovedEmily Jeremiah PART TWO: Mothering as Experience: Empowerment and Resistance 4. "We Have Mama but No Papa": Motherhood in Women-Centered SocietiesMaria-Barbara Watson-Franke 5. Mother as Transformer: Strategic Symbols of Matrilineage Recuperation in Princess Pocahontas and the Blue SpotsDannabang Kuwabong 6. Of Woman (but Not Man or the Nuclear Family) Born: Motherhood Outside Institutionalized HeterosexualityKate McCullough 7. Feminist Mothers: Successfully Negotiating the Tension between Motherhood as "Institution" and "Experience"Fiona Joy Green 8. Immortality and Morality in Contemporary Reworkings of the Demeter/Persephone MythKarin Voth Harman 9. Mothering against Motherhood and the Possibility of Empowered Maternity for Mothers and Their ChildrenAndrea O'Reilly 10. The Broken Shovel: Looking Back from Postmaternity at Co-ParentingMargaret Morganroth Gullette PART THREE: Narrating Maternity: Writing as a Mother 11. Adrienne Rich's "Clearing in the Imagination": Of Woman Born as Literary CriticismD'Arcy Randall 12. A "Sense of Drift": Adrienne Rich's Emergence from Mother to PoetJeannette E. Riley 13. Beginning with "I": The Legacy of Adrienne Rich's Of Woman BornAnn Keniston List of Contributors Index