(M)Othering the Nation: Constructing and Resisting National Allegories through the Maternal Body
Editor: Lisa Bernstein
Date Of Publication: May 2008
Isbn13: 9781847185372
Isbn: 1-84718-537-1
(M)Othering the Nation: Constructing and Resisting National Allegories through the Maternal Body explores how cultural narratives represent the mother as nation in ways that both reinforce and challenge traditional, normative roles and create new forms of social identity for women. The anthology examines ways in which the representation of motherhood as national allegory has constricted women’s social, economic, and political roles in different geographic and historical contexts. It also shows how this cultural use of the mother-figure can provide alternative models of women's lives as mothers and non-mothers. Encompassing literature from Canada, England, Germany, India, Ireland, Mexico, Romania, Sierra Leone, South Africa, the Soviet Union, Spain, and the United States, the essays attempt to give women a voice about their own diverse lives and experiences.

Section One, Authentic Mothers, examines how notions of pure, moral motherhood have been enlisted to promote nationalist projects and to create and maintain the illusion of a cohesive nation-state. Section Two, Transforming Mothers, focuses on texts that both challenge national stereotypes and contest the roles of women in society. The essays in this chapter address problems raised in the first part of the book by questioning notions of chaste, authentic mothers and by attempting to create new, inclusive and multi-cultural versions of the national imaginary. The third section, Transgressing Mothers, presents concepts of “anti-mothering,” embodied by "deviant" or "unnatural" mothers, to question the representation of mother as national allegory on the eve of and into the twenty-first century. In showing the relationship of particular women’s situations to ongoing discourses of mother-as-nation, this collection is significant to contemporary women's lives, and thus to society as a whole.

Lisa Bernstein is associate professor in the Communication, Arts, and Humanities Program at University of Maryland University College and academic exchange specialist for the U.S. Department of State. She has published articles on twentieth-century Caribbean and German literature and culture, the role of African and European intellectuals in society, and European and Latin American women’s artistic and literary self-representations.

"...an imaginative and provocative anthology. (M)Othering the Nation sensibly avoids being limited by national boundaries and examines how the trope of motherhood is presented in a variety of cultures and national situations. The articles take the reader on an educational journey through discussions of gender ideology and representations of (m)othering and the Nation in writing from and about Mexico, Ireland, Sierra Leone, Communist Romania, the Soviet Union of the 1920s, Galicia, South Africa. Its themes range from the 1950s USA and the Rosenbergs to the West German media and representations of those deemed female terrorists. An inter-national educational treat."

—Merle Collins, Professor of Comparative Literature and English, University of Maryland, College Park

“In (M)Othering the Nation, Lisa Bernstein gives us a fascinating addition to studies of gender and nation. This wide ranging anthology provocatively addresses the ruptures in national allegories of “the mother,” which reveal that real women’s experiences are often banished to the margins in ideological representation. Adopting a global perspective that draws together a vast range of cultures--from medieval to modern, from the Americas to the Soviet Union, Europe and Africa--the book provides an incisive and richly detailed examination of the link between actual and allegorical mothers.”

—Nandita Batra, Professor of English, University of Puerto Rico and Editor of Revista Atenea and Co-editor of essay anthologies: Transgression and Taboo, Narrating the Past, and This Watery World: Humans and the Sea.

Price Uk Gbp: 34.99
Price Us Usd: 52.99

Sample pdf (including Table of Contents)