Toni Morrison on Mothers and Motherhood

This collection of essays explores the gamut of Toni Morrison’s novels from her earliest to her most recent. Each of the essays examines the various ways in which Morrison’s work delineates and interrogates Western culture’s ideological norms of mothers, motherhood, and mothering. The essays consider Morrison’s female, and in some cases male, characters as challenging the concept that mothering and motherhood is a stable notion. The essays reveal both that mothering is a central concept in Morrison’s work and that an examination of this pervasive notion illuminates her corpus as a whole. Toni Morrison on Mothers and Motherhood offers a wide range of scholarship that provides a compelling look at Morrison’s work through an array of interdisciplinary approaches that are grounded in feminist/gender studies. This interdisciplinary collection of essays will be of interest to scholars and critics concerned with the notions of how we define mother/motherhood/mothering and the problem of its interpretation within Western society, as well as those engaged in the interpretation of African-American literature, and Morrison’s work in particular. "This collection of essays explores the gamut of Toni Morrison's novels from her earliest to her most recent. Each of the essays examines the various ways in which Morrison's work delineates and interrogates Western culture's ideological norms of mothers, motherhood, and mothering. The essays consider Morrison's female, and in some cases male, characters as challenging the concept that mothering and motherhood is a stable notion. The essays reveal both that mothering is a central concept in Morrison's work and that an examination of this pervasive notion illuminates her corpus as a whole. Toni Morrison and Mothers/Motherhood offers a wide range of scholarship that provides a compelling look at Morrison's work through an array of interdisciplinary approaches that are grounded in feminist/gender studies. This interdisciplinary collection of essays will be of interest to scholars and critics concerned with the notions of how we define mother/motherhood/mothering and the problem of its interpretation within Western society as well as those engaged in the interpretation of African-American literature, Morrison's work in particular."-- Provided by publisher Cover Copyright Title Page Dedication Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction I. “Othermothering” Masculine Othermothering in Toni Morrison’s Home “Not a Maternal Drudge ... Nor ... an Acid-Tongued Shrew” “You’ve Already Got What You Need, Sugar” II. “Bad” Mothering Studies in M(othering) Rethinking, Rewriting Self and Other in Toni Morrison’s Love The Trauma of Second Birth “Are You Sure She Was Your Sister?” From Sweetness to Toya Graham Racialized Intimacies and Alternative Kinship Relations III. Lack of Mothering Failed Mothers and the Black Girl-Child Victim of Incestuous Rape in The Bluest Eye and Push Mothering Oneself in Sula Black Motherhood, Beauty and Soul Murder Wound “They Took My Milk” Brother-Mother and Othermothers About the Contributors