Threads of Connection: Sorry/Not Sorry – Confronting mother (and other) blame–healing & resistance in contemporary culture and beyond
St. Petersburg, Florida & Online
March 22-24, 2024
MORNING MEETUP
Each day of the conference we will plan on meeting first thing in the morning at 9AM at MoM. Then, we will walk over to Heiress Gallery for the events of the day. If you are coming to MoM by car GO THIS WAY: Take 28th St. South of Central. Left on Fairfield Ave. South to parking lot on left and multicolored sidewalk on right. Walk through door 2606. MoM is across the hallway and up the stairs from Fairgrounds St. Pete and DaddyKool Records. If you are arriving after 9:30 AM follow the directions below (except for Saturday midday crochet event)
DIRECTIONS TO HEIRESS GALLERY
Heiress Gallery by car: 28th St. South of Central. Left on the entrance PAST Fairfield Ave. South which leads BEHIND the Fairgrounds St. Pete to the BACK OF THE BUILDING. Follow all the way to the end. Heiress Gallery is up the stairs on the left at the back of building 7/8.
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
CONFERENCE IS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC VIA ZOOM & IN PERSON. You must register for the password for the Zoom Link by writing INFO@MOMmuseum.org
DONATIONS
Help MoM thrive and cover the costs of this conference by making a generous donation here or CashApp museumofmotherhood@gmail.com. Thank YOU!
Threads of Connection: Mother (and other) blame, shame and pain, with a focus on resistance and healing. Blame and shame can be self-imposed or projected by dominant social narratives that hyper-focus on the performative nature of m/otherhood as reinforced by unrealistic hegemonic constructions. This can be true for adult children reviewing familial relationships and the world writ large as well.
We encourage presenters to unpack the sociocultural domain of mother (and other) blame and the psychological, personal, professional, and media environment within which this topic is situated. Who is harmed by blame, and whom does it serve? How are oppressive systems reinforced or even sustained? How can we resist or dismantle these systems in large and small ways? What forms of resistance, peace-making, and healing can help improve our relationships?
| FRIDAY | MARCH 22 | MIXED ZOOM & IN-PERSON PRESENTATIONS |
| 9:30 AM | Coffee at MoM | We gather to walk over to Heiress Gallery |
| 10:00 AM | Martha JOY Rose | Why we’re here: Intro – suggestions, ground rules, intro Brittany DeNucci & Courtney Kessel Build |
| 10:30 AM | Chelsea Robinson | Smash the Mom Rage -The power of a Smash Room in supporting mothers in feeling into their anger. (Zoom) |
| 11:00 AM | Avery Delany | How Empathy is our greatest tool to deconstruct the institution of normative motherhood and intervene with “bad” and “monstrous” mothering (Zoom) |
| 11:30 AM | Blessing Gbemisola Ogunyemi | Matricentric Feminism and the Liberating Power of Unmasking Motherhood: Unknotting Maternal Grief and Shame in Yewande Omotoso’s An Unusual Grief (Zoom) |
| 12:00 PM | Fly Jamerson | Resisting Mother-Villain Narratives in Performance and Media through Adaptation Conference Themes and Topics (Zoom) |
| 12:30 PM | Mariana Della Barba | How news coverage on ‘maternal burnout’ exacerbates the unrealistic perception of motherhood and leaves mothers feeling even more guilty, exhausted and sick (Zoom) |
| 1:00 PM | LUNCH (onsite) | |
| 2:00 PM | Agnes Howard | Echoes of the Primal Scream: American Motherhood during COVID (Zoom) |
| 2:30 PM | Emma Tam | Defining Daughterhood (Zoom) |
| 3:00 PM | Victoria Trinko, Julia Sarewitz & Aurelie Athan | Applied Matrescence: A Paradigm Shift in Postpartum Care (Zoom) |
| 3:30 PM | Sonia Meerai | Navigating maternal regret in the context of infertility: Intersectional and intergenerational |
| 4:00 PM | Miranda J. Brady | Munchausen by Proxy: On a cultural fascination with selfish motherhood |
| 4:30 PM | Mariona Visa | Revising the castrating mother figure from Psycho to Bates Motel. |
| 5:00 PM | Merle Bombardieri | “Should I have another Child?” |
| 5:30 PM | Vanessa Hansen | You Are Not Alone |
| 6-7:00 PM | Vanessa Marr | Tokens of Resistance/A Mothers Work is Never Done: Embroidery Circle EVENTBRITE REGISTRATION FREE |
| Dinner | On Your Own | |
| SATURDAY | March 23 | IN-PERSON PRESENTATIONS ONLY (Viewable on Zoom) |
| 9:00 AM | Coffee at MoM | |
| 9:30 AM | Amalie Vacanti | Shout Your Abortion: Signs of Change: The Impact of Billboards on the I-55 Abortion Access Route |
| 10:00 AM | Alicia Delima | Recognizing Mother Work and Sex Work as Work under Neoliberalism |
| 10:30 AM | Jill M. Wood | Birth(ing) Justice: Using a Birth Plan Undergraduate Writing Assignment as a Feminist Pedagogical Tool |
| 11:00 AM | Ieva Bisigirskaitė | Challenging ‘Safe’ Birth: A Feminist Perspective on Maternal Activism in Lithuania |
| 11:30-12:30 PM | Madison Hendry, Bag Ladies, etc. Mother Tree – crochet circle | The Womb Project; threads of connection and the roots of the Mother Tree crochet collaboration with Judy Lyons Schneider & Alice Harrison (the Bag Ladies) intergenerational conversation |
| 12:30-1:30 | LUNCH at MoM | |
| 1:30 PM | Keynote: Courtney Kessel | From witches to the weather, from maternalism to manifesto, from Talking Heads to tarot, this interactive performance lecture will wind, warp, and weave, tracing the umbilical through generations of feminist art, writing, and theory. |
| 2:00 PM | Christine Carrig | Proudly Shamed in the USA – Art Installation w/ invitation for community collaboration |
| 2:30 PM | Lakshmi Seshadri | Mindful Motherhood Meditation |
| 3:00 PM | Cyntoria Meaderds | Being The Mother You Are Told to Be: a Qualitative Analysis on Mothers In Recovery |
| 3:30 PM | Megan Welch | Othering the Mother : An In-depth Psychological Exploration of Mothering through an Ecofeminist Lens |
| 4:00 PM | Elizabeth Charles | Thirdspace Feminist Practices for Embodying Motherhood in Academia |
| 4:30 PM | Meredith Gringle, Amber Welborn, Tracy Nichols | “…you know, bad news travels fast”: A narrative case study of caring for mothers and infants experiencing substance exposed pregnancy (Zoom) |
| 5:00 PM | Nathalia Martinez-Baca | Mamá; My grandmother, eight children, and Mexican healthcare outcomes |
| 5:30-6:00 | PIZZA ONSITE | |
| 6:00-7:30 PM | Emily Fitzgerald and Molly Sherman | The People’s Clinic for Reproductive Empathy |
| SUNDAY | MARCH 24 | MIXED ZOOM & IN-PERSON PRESENTATIONS |
| 9:30 AM | Coffee at MoM | |
| 10:00 AM | Victoria Bailey | All The Ways, Always–An Ode to Mother Blame (Zoom) |
| 10:30 AM | Loïs van Albada | Nightbitch, the Bad Mother, and the Monstrous-Maternal |
| 11:00 AM | Heather E. Dillaway | I Did Not Plan on This: Abrupt Shifts in Motherhood |
| 11:30 AM | Batya Weinbaum | MOTHER: Shame Blame and Pain; the Impact of Resistance and Healing |
| 12:00 PM | Freshta Ahmadzai | Decolonizing Mothering and Care; Labour mama was skilled, her labour had value & she was a trying m(other) (Zoom) |
| 12:30 PM | Sushree Routray | Whispers of Rebellion: Matricentric Feminist Insights into Maternal Ambivalence in Contemporary Indian Fiction (Zoom) |
| 1-2:00 PM | LUNCH ONSITE | |
| 2:00 PM | Frésange Maleka | Maternal Vaccine Hesitation and the HPV Vaccination: Exploring the Complex Interplay of Loss Aversion, Emotion-Laden Choices, and the Impact of Normative Motherhood (Zoom) |
| 2:30 PM | Alicia Campos Massó | Women Cultural Agents and the Extermination of the Beguines, the Caring Mothers. |
| 3:00 PM | Collin Xia | Black Motherhood and resistance in the Pre-Emancipation British Caribbean (Zoom) |
| 3:30 PM | Sylvie Cote | A Matrifocal Reading: Monstrous Motherhood in Domenica Ruta’s Addiction Memoir With or Without You (2013) (Zoom) |
| 4:00 PM | Closing Keynote: Andrea O’Reilly | Towards a Literary Theory and Criticism of Matricritics: Begin with the mother in her own right” to deliver “new meanings of motherhood and transform maternal thinking itself (Zoom) |
| 5:00 PM | Group Closing & Dinner | In the Museum of Motherhood |
*Paid registrants receive a discounted entry to the Fairgrounds St. Pete the weekend of the conference
Special thanks to Heiress Gallery for hosting the MoM Conference and associated exhibits March 16-31, 2024 and to Liliana Beltran for making the art exhibit happen!
Closings for a Cause: Founded by Deanna Barcelona to align her mortgage business with a passion for giving back to the community. Refer someone you know in need of a home loan solution to my team. Mention closings with a cause to benefit the Museum of Motherhood. At the closing table, we’ll make a commitment to present a check to MoM in YOUR name.
The Journal of Mother Studies (JourMS): peer-reviewed, international, interdisciplinary open-access, digital humanities hybrid project focused on the field of interdisciplinary study devoted to the issues, experiences, topics, history, and culture of m/others, mothering, and motherhood.
