Mothering, Community, and Friendship

by Essah Díaz (Editor), Dannabang Kuwabong (Editor), Dorsía Smith Silva (Editor)

Overview

Mothers, Community, and Friendship is an anthology that explores the complexities of mothering/motherhood, communities, and friendship from across interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspectives. The chapters in this text not only examine how communities and friendship shape and influence the various spectrums of motherhood, but also analyze how communities and friendship are necessary for mothers. Through personal, reflective, critical essays and ethnographies, this collection situates the ways mothers are connected to communities and how these relationships forms, such as in mothering groups and maternal friendships. By calling attention to these central and current topics, Mothers, Community, and Friendship represents how communities and friendship become means of empowerment for mothers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781772583748
Publisher:	Demeter Press
Publication date:	05/25/2022
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Essah Díaz is a doctoral student in Caribbean literature in English at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus. Her poems have appeared in several poetry journals, including Moko Magazine, Eclectica Magazine, Tonguas, Odradek, and The Odyssey Online, Creative Contradictions, etc. She has co-edited the collected essays from the March 2020 Caribbean Without Borders Conference held at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras. Presently she is working on her dissertation with a focus on the poetics of healing in Caribbean women’s poetry. Dannabang Kuwabong, PhD is a professor of postcolonial Caribbean literature in English at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus. He has published widely on different fields in academic journals, and contributed numerous essays in books and journals. His books include Rhetoric of Resistance, Labor of Love: The Ecopoetics of Nationhood in the Poetry and Prose of Lasana M. Sekou, Voices from Kibuli Country, and Caribbean Blues & Love’s Genealogy. He has co-authored books including Myth Performance in African Diaspora Drama: Ritual, Theatre, and Dance, Mothers and Daughters, etc. His critical essays on Caribbean and Caribbean-Canadian literature on mothering have been published in numerous academic journals and books: Confluences I & II & III: Essays in the New Canadian Literature, Creative Contradictions, Positive Interferences, Caribbean Studies, Sargasso, Interviewing the Caribbean, The Mouth, Eleven Eleven, The Caribbean Writer, The Mouth, Interviewing the Caribbean, etc. Dorsía Smith Silva, PhD is a professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. Her poetry has been published in several journals, including Portland Review, Storyscape, Pidgeonholes, Mom Egg Review, and Moko Magazine. Her articles have been widely published as well, including in the Journal of Caribbean Literature. She is also the editor of Latina/Chicana Mothering and the co-editor of six books.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 3

Introduction: Fluid Communities, Illusive Friendships, Phenomenal Mothering Dannabang Kuwabong Dorsía Smith Silva Essah Diaz 9

I Motherhood and Communities 21

1 Hiccups and Highlights of Academic Motherhood: Three Accounts of Cultivating Community and Friendship as an Academic and a Mom Mary King Skye Chernichky-Karcher Jessica Pauly 23

2 Finding Community as a Mother and a Scholar Nicole L. Willey 41

3 Mothers, Mentors, and Communities in Alice Walker's The Color Purple and Sapphire's Push Zsuzsanna Lénárt Muszka 53

4 The Ripple Effect of Mothering in a Global Community: From Bloomington to Bogotá Silvia Rivera-Largacha Angela N. Castañeda 69

5 Film as Invitational Rhetoric: Transcending Motherhood Narratives through Community in 20th Century Women Rachel D. Davidson Catherine A. Dobris 85

6 Mma Habiba: Maternal Outcast or Community Mother Dannabang Kuwabong 109

7 Maria's Maternal Rage against the Community Dannabang Kuwabong 115

8 Fifty-Five Miles Heather Robinson 119

II Motherhood and Friendship 123

9 Supportive and Destructive Female Relationships in Mariama Bâ's So Long a Letter Sherean Shehada 125

10 "Can We All Stand Together 2 Agree on This?" Space Place, and Mothering in Lauren Mills's Minna's Patchwork Coat Hannah Swamidoss 141

11 Chinese Mothers Creating a Community of Maternal Support Catherine Ma 153

12 Beyond DNA Janice Tuck Lively Mary Barbara Walsh 167

13 A "Community of Comothers": How Friendships with Expatriate Mothers Create Intercultural Understanding Meredith Stephens 185

Notes on Contributors 199

Editorial Reviews

"Motherhood is perhaps one of the most difficult tasks faced by human beings – without formal training, without explicit guidelines, without a map. As explored in this collection, motherhood is made viable, sustainable, and joyous when mothers find solace, support, and solidarity through friendship and community, near and far, formal and informal. In fact, it is friendship and community that makes us stronger, less alone, and open to the universalities of motherhood while being fully cognizant of the disparities and differences. My greatest wish is that this message reaches all mothers, everywhere. We need each other. Together, we are stronger." —Michelann Parr is professor in the Schulich School of Education at Nipissing University and co-editor of Writing Mothers: Narrative Acts of Care, Redemption, and Transformation

 

"This book is a welcome, and absolutely, enjoyable Read! Through prose and poetry, the book tells stories of mothers, mothering, motherhood and community and transports the reader through, between and among the realms of the arduous journeys of mothering. The book situates mothering work within socio-politically fraught contexts and takes the reader through the beautiful, challenging, traumatic, inspiring and transcendental experiences of mothers and mothering. Together, this eclectic collection of stories and voices open-up spaces of being, questioning and solidarity in ways that allow the reader to appreciate the world of mothers from across different planes and realms. As an ‘academic mama’, I enjoyed the intimacy of the stories shared; and especially the reminder of timeless traditions carried out sometimes without the support of the proverbial village in our globally interconnected -if also profoundly lonely world-. The book will appeal to varied audiences who will come to it, engage and leave it, from (and at) different entry points." —Dr. Sylvia Bawa, Associate Professor of Sociology at York University

From the Publisher