Motherhood and Space Configurations of the Maternal through Politics, Home, and the Body

This interdisciplinary collection explores the complex ways motherhood is experienced by studying the concrete and imaginary spaces mothers inhabit. The authors examine locations for birth, negotiations of domesticity, institutional framings of the mother's world, and maternal metaphors in art and popular culture. Using conceptions of space as a common lens, these essays articulate the interplay between motherhood as a cultural construction and motherhood as a lived experience. The collection as a whole reveals how the spaces of motherhood are varied, changing, and politically charged.

Sarah Hardy is Associate Professor and Chair, Department of English, Hampden Sydney College, Virginia. Caroline Wiedmer is Associate Scholar at Collegium Helveticum at the ETH in Zurich.