CALL FOR PAPERS

Demeter Press
is seeking submissions for an edited collection on

Latina/Chicana Mothering

Publication Date: Spring 2011 Editors: Dorsía Smith Silva and Janine Santiago

We are very excited to edit an interdisciplinary book on mothering in the Latina and Chicana communities. We seek papers that examine the narratives, histories, practices, and theories of Latina and Chicana mothering as they reflect the realities and complexities of diverse perspectives. Latina and Chicana mothering is a rich experience, which engenders a sense of identity, multiple viewpoints, and cultural orientations. Here, the Latina/Chicana mothering experience seeks to provide a site for inquiry of those life histories and legacies, which have been marked by undergoing childbirth, raising children, or becoming mothers, as well as transatlantic mothers. One of the main goals of this text will be to examine the complex representations of Latina and Chicana mothering and to address the space where Latina and Chicana perspectives are in many cases rendered invisible.
We encourage varied approaches from across the humanities and social sciences including, but not limited to topics as the following: theoretical, historical, cultural, feminist, maternal, transgender, and gender studies; personal and reflective essays; ethnographies; oral histories, cultural studies; literary representation; mother activists and activism perspectives; constructions and hybridity theories of identity and changes in identity; constructions of ethnicity and changes in ethnicity; Latina and Chicana/mothering in global and transnational contexts; issues of immigration, diaspora, citizenship, national identity, embodiment theories; feminist philosophies of mothers and mothering; film and media representations; mothering conflicts; ideological and social debates and tensions within discussions of Latina and Chicana mothering; mothering critiques; issues of Latina and Chicana mothering, especially as they intersect with categories of race, discrimination, class, gender, economics, nation, family, community, education, and language; law, political, or scientific issues; politics and public policies; poverty; health, health care, reproduction, and reproductive rights; the role of web communities and technology; spiritual, cultural, emotional, communal, or social influences; support services for Latina and Chicana mothers; self-sponsored Latina and Chicana mothering communities and institutions; ideologies in Latino and Chicano communities

Abstracts/Proposals (250-400 words) due October 31, 2008

Acceptances made by December 1, 2008

Accepted and completed papers (15-20 pp. double-spaced, MLA format) due: March 31, 2009

Please send inquiries and papers, along with a brief biography, to:
Editors, Dorsía Smith Silva and Janine Santiago at latinachicanamothering@yahoo.com
About the Editors:
Dorsía Smith Silva teaches English in the College of General Studies at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. Her research and teaching focus on Ethnic and Caribbean Literature, the Latino community and the Diaspora, and feminism. She is the author of several articles and is the co-editor of The Caribbean without Borders: Caribbean Literature, Language, and Culture (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008).
Janine Santiago is an Assistant Professor of English at University of Puerto Rico, College of General Studies. Santiago was granted a Ph.D. in American Studies from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 2003. Her research interests are in the areas of Gender Studies, Oral History, Caribbean Women Writers, and Hispanic and Latino/a Literature and Popular Culture. She has published several articles, including her work in Latinas in the United States: A Historical Encyclopedia (2006).
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Association for Research on Mothering (ARM) Demeter Press 726 Atkinson, York University 4700 Keele Street Toronto, ON, Canada, M3J 1P3 416-736-2100 x60366 (fax) 416-736-5766 arm@yorku.ca www.yorku.ca/arm