Other Mothers: Beyond the Maternal Ideal - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0814256813 ISBN 13: 9780814256817

Publisher: Ohio State University Press, 2020

Synopsis

Other Mothers, edited by Ellen Bayuk Rosenman and Claudia C. Klaver, offers a range of essays that open a conversation about Victorian motherhood as a wide-ranging, distinctive experience and idea. In spite of its importance, however, it is one of the least-studied aspects of the Victorian era, subsumed under discussions of femininity and domesticity.

This collection addresses this void, revealing the extraordinary diversity of Victorian motherhood. Exploring diaries, novels, and court cases, with contexts ranging from London to Egypt to Australia, these varied accounts take the collection “beyond the maternal ideal” to consider the multiple, unpredictable ways in which motherhood was experienced and imagined in this formative historical period.

Other Mothers joins revisionist approaches to femininity that now characterize Victorian studies. Its contents trace intersections among gender, race, and class; question the power of separate spheres ideology; and insist on the context-specific nature of social roles. The fifteen essays in this volume contribute to the fields of literary criticism, history, cultural studies, and history.

About this title

About the Author

Ellen Bayuk Rosenman is professor of English, and affiliate in Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Kentucky.
Claudia C. Klaver is associate professor of English at Syracuse University.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ohio State University Press
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0814256813
• ISBN 13: 9780814256817
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 358
• Editor: Rosenman Ellen, KLAVER CLAUDIA C.