CALL FOR PAPERS 

Demeter Press

is seeking submissions for an edited collection entitled

Maternal Ambivalence
Editors: Dr. Tanya Cassidy, Dr. Susan Hogan &

Dr. Sarah LaChance Adams

Deadline for Abstracts: September 1, 2015

This anthology will examine the diverse and complex experiences of maternal ambivalence from a range of disciplinary perspectives.

Most simply, maternal ambivalence can be described as the simultaneous and contradictory emotional responses of mothers toward their children: love and hate, anger and tenderness, pity and cruelty, satisfaction and rage. Mothers often feel as though their own desires are directed against themselves when they are in opposition to their children's needs and wishes. When one's beloved child cries in despair at one's departure, one may both want and not want to leave. When the mother simultaneously desires intimacy and distance in relation to her child, when she feels the impulses to both harm and protect, to both abandon and nurture, this is when maternal ambivalence is at its perplexing height.

However, it would be reductive to think of maternal ambivalence merely as an emotional reaction. Maternal ambivalence is also a reflection of wider social forces: those which tell women to be independent and vigorous whilst simultaneously telling us to be nurturing and passive. Motherhood is a culturally and historically situated set of practices which are highly contested in ways which perhaps makes ambivalence an inevitability. Moreover, ambivalence itself may vary across space and time, offering a wide range of reactions to varying situations.

Submissions are welcome that approach the topic of maternal ambivalence through the lenses of feminist theory, literary criticism, and may include historical, cultural, semiotic, philosophical, and economic analyses. We hope to include both creative and scholarly submissions. Essays from all disciplinary perspectives are welcome, and interdisciplinary work is especially encouraged.

Topics may include (but are not limited to):

Social, cultural and historical aspects of mothering and ambivalence; theoretical and philosophical explorations of maternal ambivalence; case studies; critiques of media representations; discussion of artistic explorations; cross-cultural, social-geographical or anthropological investigations of maternal practices which may seem ambivalent; other relevant topics regarding maternal ambivalence.

Submission Guidelines:

Abstracts/Proposal (350-400 words) with a 50-word biography due: September 1, 2015. Acceptances made by: January 1, 2016. Completed manuscripts (15-18 pages double-spaced with references in MLA format) are due: September 1, 2016. Please note that acceptance will depend on the strength and fit of the final piece. Please send inquiries and abstracts to editors:
Dr. Tanya Cassidy, Dr. Susan Hogan, Dr. Sarah LaChance Adams at:[log in to unmask]

DEMETER PRESS

140 Holland St. West, P.O. Box 13022 Bradford, ON, L3Z 2Y5 

(tel) 905-775-5215

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