Description
Book SynopsisOffers a variety of perspectives for analyzing representations of the mother in francophone literature and film at the turn of the twenty-first century in North America, including Québec, Ontario, New England, and California.
Trade Review"This timely volume invigorates scholarly attention to the role of the mother in culture and advocates for a reading of motherhood and maternity imbued with empowering potential for all women whose value is measured according to social expectations of mothers."—Jocelyn A. Frelier,
French Studies"This collection will be of interest to those studying mothers and motherhood in literature of any language as well as scholars of Francophone North America."—D. L. Boudreau,
Choice“This multidisciplinary collection of essays from a francophone North American context constitutes an important challenge to normalizing and oppressive discourses of motherhood that fail to take account of the much messier and often ambivalent nature of lived maternal experiences. . . . We are reminded in this collection of the dangers of the cultural idealization of mothers and the ongoing need to deconstruct normative motherhood from a feminist perspective.”—Julie Rodgers, lecturer in French studies and member of the Motherhood Project, Maynooth University (Ireland)
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction: Failing Successfully
Loïc Bourdeau
1. The Whore and Her Mother: Exploring Matrophobia in Nelly Arcan’s
Putain Pauline Henry-Tierney
2. Horrible Mothers in
Mémère’s Kitchen: Queer Identity in New England Franco-America
Susan Pinette
3. “I’m Not the Virgin Mary”: Rebellious Motherhood in Grégoire Chabot’s “A Life Lost”
Chelsea Ray
4. Permissive Parenting: The Awful American Mother in Nancy Huston’s
Lignes de faille Alison Rice
5. Lucie Joubert’s Ironic Rejection of Motherhood in
L’envers du landau Natalie Edwards
6. Voicing Shame: From Fiction to Confession in the Work of Marguerite Andersen
Lucie Hotte and Ariane Brun del Re
7. The Transgressive Mother in Nancy Huston’s
Bad Girl: Classes de littérature Susan Ireland and Patrice J. Proulx
8. Forgiving the Horrible Mother: Children’s Needs and Women’s Desires in Twenty-First-Century Québécois Film
Amy J. Ransom
9. Politics and Motherhood in Xavier Dolan’s
J’ai tué ma mère and
Mommy Loïc Bourdeau
Contributors
Index
