Toni Morrison and Motherhood: A Politics of the Heart
نویسنده
چکیده
While sorting through mountains of articles and books about the works of Toni Morrison, I realized there existed a glaring omission in the literature: there was yet to be published a single volume that solely addressed the characterization of mothers in Morrison's narrative. Given that I compare portraits of maternity in novels by women authors of the Americas in my doctoral work, I was overcome with visions of grandeur, and at the very least, instant tenure. Alas, Andrea O'Reilly got there first. An associate professor at York University, and the president of the Association for Research on Mothering, she has written what, to my knowledge, is the first book that focuses exclusively on how Toni Morrison employs the theme of motherhood throughout her fiction. O'Reilly examines all of Morrison's novels, including a brief commentary on her latest publication, Love. Reading Morrison as a "maternal theorist" (xi), the author persuasively demonstrates that Morrison's beliefs about motherwork and motherlove are fundamental in understanding her perspective about black womanhood.
منابع مشابه
A Politics of the Heart Toni Morrison’s Theory of Motherhood as a Site of Power and Motherwork as Concerned with the Empowerment of Children
she returns to time and time again in her many interviews and articles. In her reflections on motherhood, both inside and outside her fiction, Morrison articulates a fully developed theory of African American mothering that is central to her larger political and philosophical stance on black womanhood. Building upon black women’s experiences of, and perspectives on motherhood, Morrison develops...
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