Unmasking (New) Maternal Realities Pregnancy, Childbirth, Postpartum in Global Literature, Cinema, and Media

This book aims to shed light on artistic works centered on mothering and reproductive experiences, ones which defy outdated stereotypes, break taboos, overcome trauma, and empower women. The goal of this collection is to contribute to this field of studies and foster our understanding of what motherhood and mothering really look like in our society. Throughout this collaborative volume, the voices of established and emerging scholars merge to broaden the discourse on maternity by examining the complex and constantly evolving maternal experiences that are unique and yet transnational and universal in their essence. 

Chapter 1: Unmasking New Maternal Realities.- Section 1: The Pregnant and Puerperal Body.- Chapter 2: Expecting, Silent, Alone: Representation of Pregnancy in Núria Pompeia’s Maternasis.- Chapter 3: Mothers and Aliens: Biotechnology and the Pregnant Body in Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis Series.- Chapter 4: Jazmina Barrera, Isabel Zapata, and the “Counter-Canon” of Motherhood Literature.- Chapter 5: Mediating Maternity: Laughter and Mom Humor on Social Media.- Section 2: Postpartum (Depression, Loss, Stillborn, Trauma).- Chapter 6: What Greater Grief? Trauma Theory and The Rules Do Not Apply.- Chapter 7: Fanciful Mourning: Daydreams and Maternal Ambivalence in Heather O’Neill’s The Lonely Hearts Hotel.- Chapter 8: La Pietà on Broadway: Postpartum Bereavement and Wet Nurses on the American Stage.- Chapter 9: Peripartum Depression and Maternal Ambivalence in Helen Dunmore’s Talking to the Dead.- Section 3: Alternative Spaces.- Chapter 10: Alternative Birth Spaces, Midwifery Care, and Empowered Birth in Transnational Contemporary Literature.- Chapter 11: Birthing Resistance: An Autoethnographic Exploration of Homebirth as Embodied Defiance of Medicalization.- Chapter 12: Maternal Inclination and the Politics of Immunity in Emma Donoghue’s The Pull of the Stars.- Chapter 13: Magdalene Trauma-Telling in Aotearoa New Zealand Literature. A Comparative Study of Two Female Bildungsroman: Does This Make Sense to You? by Rene´e (1994), and Rich Man Road by Ann Glamuzina (2015).- Chapter 14: Conflicting Maternal Feelings in the Space of the Hogar: Duties and Desires in Maura Delpero’s Maternal.

Laura Lazzari is a Scientific Collaborator at the Sasso Corbaro Foundation for the Medical Humanities, Switzerland, and an Affiliate Faculty and Scholar at Georgetown University, USA.

Giulia Po DeLisle is Associate Professor and Coordinator of Italian Language and Culture at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA.