English 218 - Colloquium: Monstrous Mothers

This course will explore the monstrosity of motherhood - the fear, disgust, alienation, and confusion of both being a mother and having one. We will discuss literary and cinematic representations of mothers as absent, distant, cruel, ambivalent, irresponsible, and deviant, and consider the ways we have been taught to think of motherhood both as a self-sacrifice and as necessary. But we will also seek new models of care, love, and attachment that are dependent neither on the sacrifice of one’s self nor on biological reproduction and that recast mothering as potentially revolutionary. Not open to first years. (E)

[CE] No FY