Mediated Moms

Heather L. Hundley (PhD, University of Utah) is Professor of Communication Studies at California State University, San Bernardino. Her research has appeared in Communication Reports, Communication Quarterly, and New Media & Society, among other journals. Sara E. Hayden (PhD, University of Minnesota) is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Montana. Her research has appeared in The Quarterly Journal of Speech and Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, among other journals. She is co-editor of Contemplating Maternity in an Era of Choice: Explorations into Discourses of Reproduction (2010).

«The essays in this volume enrich and elucidate the complexities and contradictory tensions of motherhood, and the representations of it in this contemporary moment. The contributors to this book demonstrate that motherhood is neither inimical nor antithetical to possibilities for transgression. Rather, motherhood as an ideological construction is a multidimensional, paradoxical site of contestation and struggle. Contributors to this book demonstrate that cautious optimism is warranted about the potentially liberatory possibilities of mediated transgressive mothering.»Susan Owen, Distinguished Professor of Communication Studies, University of Puget Sound)«Heather L. Hundley and Sara E. Hayden have done a superb job bringing together a set of essays that analyze and enlarge our understanding of the motherhood myth. As a result, Mediated Moms provides a more complex understanding of how the institution of motherhood is and continues to be culturally constructed, while contributors provide insightful analyses that move beyond the good-bad mothering binary to reveal how the mediated mothers explored sometimes defy, challenge, talk back to, and/or negotiate institutionalized motherhood. Thus, this book is a must-read for any scholar interested in learning how and why we should all appreciate the important roles ‘bad’ mothers play in the always-evolving institution of motherhood.»(D. Lynn O’Brien Hallstein, Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Boston University)

• Contents: Sara E. Hayden/Heather L. Hundley: Challenging the Motherhood Myth – Suzy D’Enbeau/Patrice M. Buzzanell: Counter-Intensive Mothering: Exploring Transgressive Portrayals and Transcendence on Mad Men – Elizabeth Fish Hatfield: Motherhood and Mental Health: Carrie Mathison’s Homeland Pregnancy – Katherine J. Lehman: Addicted to Danger: The Fierce, Flawed Mothers of Nurse Jackie and Weeds – Susana Martínez Guillem/Lisa A. Flores: Maternal Transgressions, Racial Regressions: How Whiteness Mediates the (Worst) White Moms – Natasha Howard: 16 and Pregnant and Black: Challenging and Debunking Stereotypes – Sharon R. Mazzarella: «It Is What It Is»: Here Comes Honey Boo Boo’s «Mama» June Shannon as Unruly Mother – Stephanie L. Gomez: «Save Your Tears for Your Pillow»: Tough Love and the Mothering Double Bind in Dance Moms – Beth L. Boser: «I Forgot How It Was to Be Normal»: Decompensating the Binary of Good/Bad Motherhood – Rachel D. Davidson/Lara C. Stache: A Tale of Morality, Class, and Transnational Mothering: Broadening and Constraining Motherhood in Mammoth – Tash a N. Dubriwny: Mommy Blogs and the Disruptive Possibilities of Transgressive Drinking – Valerie Palmer-Mehta/Sherianne Shuler: «Devil Mamas» of Social Media: Resistant Maternal Discourses in Sanctimommy – Linda Steiner/ Carolyn Bronstein: When Tiger Mothers Transgress: Amy Chua, Dara-Lynn Weiss and the Cultural Imperative of Intensive Mothering.