Friday Night:
Dr. Janice DeWhyte, Associate Professor of Religion, Loma Linda University.

A Matter of Life and Death: Maternity in Antiquity and Today

Dr. Janice De-Whyte, Associate Professor of Religion at Loma Linda University and author of Wom(b)an: A Cultural- Narrative Reading of the Hebrew Bible Barrenness Narratives. Read more!

Saturday Morning:
Dr. Andrea O’Reilly, Professor, School of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, York University, Toronto

The Mother Wave: Theorizing and Enacting A Feminism For and about Mothers

Andrea O’Reilly, PhD, is full professor in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at York University, founder/editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Motherhood Initiative and publisher of Demeter Press. She is coeditor/editor of twenty-five plus books including Feminist Parenting: Perspectives from Africa and Beyond (2020), Mothers, Mothering, and COVID-19: Dispatches from a Pandemic (2021), Maternal Theory, The 2nd Edition (2021), Monstrous Mothers; Troubling Tropes (2021, Maternal Regret: Resistances, Renunciations, and Reflections  (2022), Normative Motherhood: Regulations, Representations, and Reclamations (2023) and  Coming into Being: Mothers on Finding and Realizing Feminism (2023). She is editor of the Encyclopedia on Motherhood (2010) and coeditor of the Routledge Companion to Motherhood (2019). She is author of Toni Morrison and Motherhood: A Politics of the Heart (2004); Rocking the Cradle: Thoughts on Motherhood, Feminism, and the Possibility of Empowered Mothering (2006); and Matricentric Feminism: Theory, Activism, and Practice, The 2nd Edition (2021). She is twice the recipient of York University’s “Professor of the Year Award” for teaching excellence and is the 2019 recipient of the Status of Women and Equity Award of Distinction from OCUFA (Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations). She has received more than 1.5 million dollars in grant funding for her research projects including two current ones: “Older Young Mothers in Canada” and “Mothers and Returning to ‘Normal’: The Impact of the Pandemic on Mothering and Families.” 

Sunday Afternoon:
Coming to You (2021) Film Screening and Q & A with Byun Gyuri, Director, and featured mothers Nabi and Vivian

Friday, April 28, 2023

4-5:15 p.m., 404 Beckman
Opening Remarks: Provost Norma Bouchard
Keynote Address: Dr. Janice DeWhyte
Flyer
More Event Info

A Matter of Life and Death: Maternity in Antiquity and Today

Dr. Janice DeWhyte, Associate Professor of Religion at Loma Linda University and author of Wom(b)an: A Cultural-Narrative Reading of the Hebrew Bible Barrenness Narratives

Reception to follow: 5:15-6 p.m.
Co-sponsor Religious Studies Francis Memorial Lectureship

Saturday, April 29, 2023

Children are welcome at conference. Lactation stations available on campus.

8 - 9 a.m. Registration, coffee, continental breakfast, 404 Beckman

• J Wells, “The Crisis of Childrearing Behind Bars: Analyzing the Construction of Motherhood in Prison Nursery Programs”
• Sandy May, “The Impossible "Truth and Reconciliation" of Canada's Birth Evacuation Policy Epistemological Resources in Society”
• Ame Khin May-Kyawt, “Motherhood and Gender Role: A Study of Employed Myanmar Diasporic Mothers in The Greater Toronto Area”
• Junghun Oh, “Let Us Show Our True Lives: How Korean Activist Mothers of People with Developmental Disabilities Create”

Workshop 1:
California Reproductive Rights, 9 – 10 a.m., BK 213
Professor Marisa Cianciarulo, J.D. (Fowler School of Law) 

This workshop explores the fallacies of the anti-choice movement, explains the protections available in free-choice states like California, and compares the competing visions of motherhood promulgated by forced-pregnancy states versus free-choice states. In the wake of the precedent-shattering, ideologically-driven Dobbs decision, states across the U.S. now have the authority to force women, teens, and children to endure pregnancy and childbirth, irrespective of the physical, moral, religious, socioeconomic, and other factors that impact such a grave and personal decision. California remains a free-choice state that recognizes women and girls as autonomous humans rather than vehicles for those who would impose their religious and moral convictions on others. 

Workshop 2:
Mindfulness and the Body Meditation, 9 – 10 a.m., BK 214
Rev. Dr. Gail Stearns (Religious Studies, Wallace All Faiths Chapel, member, International Mindfulness Teachers Association)

Are you ready for Mindfulness with a twist? Much of Mindfulness is marketed these days as one more “self-help” technique claiming you can solve all the problems of your life by working on yourself alone. The reality is different: the way we understand our bodies is not something we individually conjure up at all. It is inherited from a culture that incessantly judges the body, whether the “feminine” body, the “mothering” body, or other constructions constricting appreciation of our bodies. 

In this workshop, we’ll use the tools of Mindfulness in our own way – to become aware that negative self-image is not our fault at all and ours to solve alone, but has been internalized from a misogynist culture. We’ll uncover new possibilities, like 

• disbelieving internalized negative self-image;
• viewing ourselves without judgment; 
• reframing our relationship with this amazing person and body

You will walk away with simple techniques to begin to shift your relationship with your body and practice appreciation of your body. And together we will practice reaching outward with compassion to change negative cultural constructions of body, for the sake of us all.

• Thea Jones, “The Outlawed Nipple: Breastless Parents and the Desire to Conform to Normative Mothering”
• Samira Rajabi, “What is it to Mother without Children?”
• Stacy L. Young & Chelsea Jones, “Body Talk in Mother-Daughter Relationships: Mothers as Villain, Victim, or Hero”
• Alexandra Petrus, “A (False) Biography of an Unknown Mother”

Panel 3: 10:30 - 11:50 a.m., BK 104
Moderator: Dr. Charissa Threat

• Emeer Hassanpour, “Incomeless Mothers and Domestic Slavery: The Specter of Female Silence in Cinema”
• Feiyang Zhang, “Song of Spring and Petite Maman: Reciprocal Motherhood in Traumatic Contemporary Life”
• Leah Aldridge, “Your children will soon be forgotten:" Black Motherhood in 12 Years a Slave”
• Elana Rahman, “Mothers of the Olive Tree”

Lunch and Keynote Address, 12 - 1 p.m., BK 404

Dr. Andrea O’Reilly, Professor, School of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, York University, Toronto

The Mother Wave: Theorizing and Enacting A Feminism For and about Mothers

Panel 4: 1:15 - 2:35 p.m., BK 107
Moderator: Gabriela Castaneda

• Sophia Ahmed, “Muslim Motherhood”
• Essraa Nawar, “What You Do Not Know about Muslim American Mothers”
• Minju Kwon and Iara Gonzalez-Ascencio, “Mothers Against Tequila Waste: Strategies for Environmental Activism in Mexico”

Panel 5: 1:15 - 2:35 p.m. Film, BK 104
Moderator: Dr. Katharine Gillespie

• Yinqi Zhou, “Queer Motherhood: Deconstruction and Reconfiguration of Motherhood in All About My Mother”
• Mi-Jeong Lee, “Posthuman Individuated Narrativity: Motherhood in the Cinema of Hong Sang-Soo”
• Katrina Millan, “Only Mom Can Save the World: Maternal Myths of Salvation and Destruction in Post-Apocalyptic Film”
• Kelli Fuery, “The Precarious Intimacy of Screened Abortion”

Workshop 3:
Exploring Motherhood through Writing, 2:45 - 3:45 p.m., BK 213
Dr. Anna Leahy (Creative Writing)

This session is designed to make the abstract concept of motherhood concrete and individual through literary examples and writing exercises. In this session, we’ll start by reading and talking about short pieces of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction about mothers or from the perspective of mothers. What stories do people tell about mothering? What metaphors have people created for motherhood? What have others said it means to become a mother—or to lose your mother? We’ll consider the advice the mother gives to her daughter in Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” and the wishes Lucille Clifton has for her sons—and also what some characters on the page say to and about their mothers.

And then we’ll turn to composing our own stories of mothering and our metaphors of motherhood, real or imagined, as mothers or as offspring. Several writing prompts will be offered so that participants can test out options and also have ideas to take home for future journaling. Participants may share their writing aloud as time allows.

Workshop 4:
Exploring Motherhood through Dance and Movement, 2:45 - 3:45 p.m., BK 214
Lauren Bramlett (Dance Major ’23) and Professor Liz Maxwell (Dance)

This workshop, which welcomes all levels of dance experience, aims to take theoretical concepts of motherhood and translate them into embodied experiences, utilizing movement of the body to understand the abstract. Participants will start by viewing a live performance of Isadora Duncan’s “Mother,” followed by small group discussions and guided gestural compositions inspired by their viewing. Throughout this process of composing and sharing, participants will ponder varied words and phrases that they associate with motherhood. In the second section of this workshop, this verbal text will be used to create a movement choir in collaboration with all participants, with the ultimate goal of experiencing motherhood on an embodied level.

Panel 6: 2:45 - 4:05 p.m., BK 104
Moderator: Helen Norris

• Miranda J. Brady, “The Trouble of Mediated White Motherhood After Second Wave Feminism"
• Tina Powell, “A Case for Motherhood as an Intersectional Identity: A Feminist's Labor of Love”
• Daisy Milman, “Development of the Digital Era “Good Motherhood” Scale”

Panel 7: 4:15 - 5:35 p.m., BK 104
Moderator: Dr. Wendy Salmond

• Katherine Sobering and Liss LaFleur, “Queer Childbirth in America: Reimagining Judy Chicago's Birth Project through Arts-Based Research"
• Veronique Olivier, “Colette and Motherhood as Language"
• Amber Power, “Reimagining the Mother: Contemporary Intermedial Approaches to Brecht’s 1931 ‘Learning Play’”

Workshop 5:
Practical Tools to Empower the Mind, Body and Spirit, 4:15 - 5:15 p.m., BK 213
Liza Borja (Pilates and wellness instructor)

Get ready to activate your body, mind and spirit and empower your greatest version of yourself!  In this dynamic and interactive workshop, learn tools that have led to countless others to experience more joy and less anxiety through body movement, breath work, and visualization.  Liza draws upon her knowledge of the healing arts and fitness to teach you insight to awaken and align with the divine feminine within.  Tap into techniques to clear your mind and enliven your spirit. This workshop includes light physical movement that includes standing, stretching and bending.

Workshop 6:
Repro Justice/Motherhood Justice Artivism, 4:15 - 5:15 p.m., BK 214
Professor CK Magliola (Women’s and Gender Studies)

In this workshop, participants will be asked to ponder reproductive justice as a spectrum of many issues through art-making. In the spirit of the guerrilla art movement (which fuses art and activism to disrupt everyday life in public spaces and aims to challenge dehumanizing thinking, practices and policies), participants will create posters for public display and handmade Mama’s Day cards using stencils and block printing techniques. 

Sunday, April 30, 2023

8:30 -9:30 a.m. Registration, coffee, continental breakfast, Marion Knott Studios Lobby

9:30 - 10:35 a.m. Student Panel Presentations, MKS 111

• Anika Manuel: (In)Visible Boxes: Racialized Intersubjectivity and Transracial Mothering in Senna’s Caucasia
• Belle Tatsing: Absence of Womanhood in West African Motherhood in The Fisherman’s Diary
• Bernadine Cortina: Mamie Till-Mobley: Paradox and Poetics of Racialized Public Motherhood in Chinonye Chukwu’s Till (2022)
• Emma Raanan: Consequences of Patriarchal Institution of Motherhood in Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects
• Thi Chu: Feminist Mothering in 20th Century Women: An Attempt to Break the Motherhood Myth
• Mariana Juarez: Being Super: Mothering Man in Incredibles 2

10:35 - 10:50 a.m. Respondent - Andrea O'Reilly

10:50 - 11 a.m. Break

11 - 11:50 a.m. Student Panel Presentations, MKS 111

• Manjima Tarafdar: Subverting “Divine” Bengali Motherhood in Rituporno Ghosh’s film Titli (2002)
• Bryan Lin: Community Mothering in Broker: Challenging the Myth of Motherhood
• Alena Nguyen: Collective Mothering and Immigrant Identities in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club
• Hana Abiog: Defeated Motherhood in Lynne Ramsay’s We Need to Talk about Kevin
• Lauren Bramlett: Liminal Mothering in Short Term 12

11:50 a.m. - 12 p.m. Respondent - Andrea O'Reilly

9:45 -11 a.m. Student Poster Session, Marion Knott Studios Lobby

• Aarushi Bhaskaran, “Amma/Mātā/Ma– Deconstructing Depictions and Discourse on Motherhood in Hinduism”
• Emma Brandel, "Motherhood and the Julio-Claudians: Maternal Power in Early Imperial Rome
• Sharon Chang, “Asian Immigrant Mothers and Generational Trauma”
• Cole Clark, "Silent Possession: Motherhood and Lived Experience in You Won't Be Alone"
• Susan Harding, "The Parent(hood) Trap: Imperfect Mothering in The Parent Trap (1998)
• Francesca Hill, “Modern Motherhood: Developments and Trends in Motherhood in Contemporary France”
• Kylee Schwartz, “Birth of the Magic Baby: An Exploration of Motherhood and Pro-Life Sentiments in Young Adult Fiction”

12 - 1 p.m. Lunch break (pre-ordered lunch boxes provided) Lobby and Patio

1 – 4 p.m. Folino Theatre, Dodge College
Opening Remarks: Dean Stephen Galloway, Dodge College of Film and Media Arts
Film Screening: Coming to You

Event Flyer

Coming to You (2021), directed by Byun Gyuri, an activist/director at Pinks: Solidarity for Sexually Minor Cultures & Human Rights who produces documentaries based on feminist sensibility to seek solidarity and create dialogues.

Discussion to follow with Byun Gyuri, Director and the mothers, Nabi and Vivian, featured in the feature documentary film.

Moderated by Dr. Nam Lee

4:15 -5 p.m Reception, Marion Knott Studios Lobby

Conference Sponsors

This conference would not be possible without the support from all our co-sponsors and funding sources. Thank you!

• Korea Foundation Grant
• Provost’s Office, On-Campus Conference Grant
• Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
• Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences
• Dodge College of Film and Media Arts
• Religious Studies Department/Francis Memorial Lectureship
• Film and Media Studies Program
• Leatherby Libraries
• Orange Public Library
• Center for Undergraduate Excellence

Library Display

Stop by the Leatherby Library to see their Motherhood book display! The display features over 50 books, ranging from the politics of motherhood and femininity to gender, health, and much more!

Call for Papers

20-Minute Presentations
Panels held on Saturday, April 29, 2023 from 9 a.m.- 6 p.m.

We invite submissions that explore how the concept of motherhood is constructed and shaped and how it can be contested and negotiated through art, discourse, and social institutions. We are interested in the ways in which the concept of motherhood is evolving beyond the biological to a way of being in the world, an attitude toward the existing order.

Presentations might address, but are by no means limited to, the following themes:

• Representation of mothers or motherhood in:

          - Art
          - Film/TV
          - History
          - Literature
          - Popular Culture
          - Religion

• Politics of Motherhood
• Motherhood and Gender
• Motherhood and Race
• Femininity and Motherhood
• Intersectionality and Motherhood
• Motherhood and Health

          - Reproduction Rights
          - Childbirth
          - Midwifery

• Motherhood as Labor in the Community, Academy, Workplace, and World

Submission should include an abstract (approx. 250 words) and a short bio, emphasizing work related to the conference themes. Download flyer!

Deadline: Mar. 10, 2023 (abstracts reviewed on a rolling basis)

Poster Presentations: High School and College Students Only - DUE APRIL 12, 2023

Student Poster Session held on Sunday, April 30, 2023, from 9:45 a.m. -11 a.m.

We invite high school and college students to submit poster presentations on themes of mothering and motherhood. Posters exploring how motherhood is constructed and shaped through media representations in popular culture, literature, film, art, and through social institutions are particularly encouraged.

Students will be provided poster design and printing instructions, and Chapman will print the posters free of charge.

Submission should include an abstract (approx. 250 words) and a short bio.

Deadline: Tues. April 12, 2023 (abstracts reviewed on a rolling basis)