The Routledge Companion to Motherhood
ISBN: 9781315167848
Platform/Publisher: Taylor & Francis / Routledge
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited



Interdisciplinary and intersectional in emphasis, the Routledge Companion to Motherhood brings together essays on current intellectual themes, issues, and debates, while also creating a foundation for future scholarship and study as the field of Motherhood Studies continues to develop globally.

This Routledge Companion is the first extensive collection on the wide-ranging topics, themes, issues, and debates that ground the intellectual work being done on motherhood. Global in scope and including a range of disciplinary perspectives, including anthropology, literature, communication studies, sociology, women's and gender studies, history, and economics, this volume introduces the foundational topics and ideas in motherhood, delineates the diversity and complexity of mothering, and also stimulates dialogue among scholars and students approaching from divergent backgrounds and intellectual perspectives.

This will become a foundational text for academics in Women's and Gender Studies and interdisciplinary researchers interested in this important, complex and rapidly growing topic. Scholars of psychology, sociology or public policy, and activists in both university and workplace settings interested in motherhood and mothering will find it an invaluable guide.


Lynn O'Brien Hallstein, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric and an Affiliated Faculty of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Boston University. She is the author/(co)editor of five books, including Bikini-Ready Moms: Celebrity Profiles, Motherhood, and the Body , which won the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender's 2016 Outstanding Book Award, and has published in variety of feminist and communication journals.  

Andrea O'Reilly, PhD, is Professor in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies at York University. O'Reilly is founder and director of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement, founder and editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Motherhood Initiative, and founder and publisher of Demeter Press. She is the editor/author of 22 books including Matricentric Feminism: Theory, Activism, and Practice (2016). 

Melinda Vandenbeld Giles is a lecturer in Anthropology and English at Lakehead University (Orillia). Her research focuses on neoliberalism, public policy and homelessness (particularly for mothers) in Ontario. Melinda's publications include her Demeter Press edited volume Mothering in the Age of Neoliberalism, her co-edited volume The Routledge Companion to Motherhood, and her Inanna feminist novel Clara Awake . Melinda's work also appears in many Demeter Press edited collections, JMI (Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement) and Development (Journal of the Society for International Development).

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