[ecrea] CfP: Motherhood and Culture, International and Interdisciplinary Conference, Maynooth University

Reminder: Call for Papers

Motherhood and Culture
International and Interdisciplinary Conference

15-17 June 2015
Iontas Building, Maynooth University, Co. Kildare, Ireland

Confirmed Key Note Speakers:
Professor Nancy Chodorow (UC Berkeley & Harvard, USA)
Professor Andrea O’Reilly (York, Canada)

Stories about motherhood have powerfully shaped critical and theoretical 
directions at least since the publication of Simone de Beauvoir’s 
intellectually powerful feminist work,The Second Sex in 1949, which 
devalued maternal labour, a tendency then critiqued by Sara Ruddick’s 
key work, Maternal Thinking: Towards a Politics of Peace (1989), which 
defined maternal thinking and practice as a discipline. Recently what 
has been termed the ‘maternal turn’ in critical theory examines how 
positioning and expressing motherhood in a range of contexts is critical 
for understanding changing cultures, populations and media. As Clifford 
Geertz has argued, culture is the ensemble of stories we tell ourselves 
about ourselves; culture is not only a reflection of our values, our 
beliefs and our practices, it also influences and shapes those values, 
beliefs and practices. This conference seeks then to analyse the 
cultural meaning of motherhood in the contemporary era through exploring 
the stories we tell ourselves about mothers, mothering and motherhood 
through history, across diverse media and from various cultural, 
national, racial, class and gendered perspectives.

Revaluing the maternal, socio-cultural diversity, and identity politics 
of mothers, mothering, motherhood frame this exciting international and 
interdisciplinary conference.  We encourage researchers from a wide 
range of disciplines and cultural perspectives to submit proposals for 
papers that speak to mothers, mothering and motherhood in relationship 
to the following (and related) topics:

Identity, Diversity, Values, Feminism(s), Queerness, Transgression, 
Disability, Migration, History, Embodiment, Race, Class,
Politics, Neoliberalism, Religion, Philosophy, Spirituality, Sexuality, 
Nationalism and/or Transnationalism,
Psychoanalysis, Art, Music, Literature, Media, Popular Culture, Digital 
Culture, Language,
Theory, Demography and also Non-motherhood, Delaying Motherhood, Refusal 
of Motherhood

To mark Bloomsday on 16 June, there will be a series of themed panels on 
the topic of ‘Joyce and Motherhood’. Proposals for this series might 
also cover related topics such as ‘Mother Ireland’, ‘Motherhood and 
Dublin’, etc.

Please submit proposals for papers (300 words and 3 keywords) along with 
a 50-word biographical note to the conference organisers at 
(motherhood.project /at/ nuim.ie) by 15 February 2015. Proposers should 
indicate if they would like their abstracts to be considered for the 
Bloomsday panels. Please note that submission of a proposal does not 
guarantee its acceptance. Proposers will be informed by 1 March whether 
their proposal has been accepted.

This conference is generously supported by the Irish Research Council 
and the Maynooth University Conference and Workshop Fund.

Conference Registration
Registration for the conference will open on 15 February 2015.
There will be an early-bird fee for the full conference of €150 (€75 
with a valid student ID) for all registrations received before 30 April 
2015; thereafter, the full conference fee will be €200 (€75 with a valid 
student ID).

Postgraduate Bursaries
A limited number of bursaries will be made available to postgraduate 
students as a contribution towards the costs of travel and 
accommodation. These will carry a value of €75 for students registered 
at institutions in Ireland and Northern Ireland and €200 for students 
registered at institutions outside of Ireland. Postgraduate students who 
are interested in applying for these scholarships should send a 300-word 
personal statement explaining the relevance of the conference topic for 
their research to the conference organisers at 
(motherhood.project /at/ nuim.ie) by 15 February 2015. Please note that 
postgraduate students who are invited to speak at the conference will be 
given priority in the allocation of bursaries.

Conference Organisers
Dr Valerie Heffernan (School of Modern Languages, Literatures & Cultures)
Dr Moynagh Sullivan (School of English, Media and Theatre Studies)
Dr Susan Gottlöber (Department of Philosophy)
Dr Tanya Cassidy (Department of Anthropology)

About the Research Cluster on ‘Identity, Diversity, and Values’
Our sense of identity and our understanding of national, ethnic, gender, 
religious, and class issues shape how we live as citizens in harmony or 
conflict.  Powerful forces such as globalisation, conflict and 
technological advancement are changing these notions in unforeseen ways. 
Researchers at Maynooth University seek to understand the consequences 
of how human identity is portrayed in a changing world.  Our research 
examines critical debates in contemporary women’s writing and in gender, 
performativity and play across several languages and cultures.  We focus 
on philosophical, psychoanalytical, anthropological, and sociological 
approaches to diversity, tolerance, inclusivity, plurality and ‘the 
other’, and use the concepts of diversity and identity to explore these 
developments, their expression, and their meaning for society.
Maynooth University is an ideal Host Institution for a Marie Sklodowska 
Curie Individual Fellowship and this cluster is interested in hearing 
from potential applicants. Contact (identityandvalues /at/ nuim.ie) for more 
information.


Katie Stone
Department of German
School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures
Maynooth University

Postdoctoral Researcher for the Irish Research Council Project
"The Cultural Transmission of Motherhood in Europe"



Maynooth University, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland.

E: (katie.stone /at/ nuim.ie)
W: www.maynoothuniversity.ie


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