Spring 2017 Demeter Press

Feminist Publishing on Mothering, Reproduction, Sexuality, and Family DEMETER PRESS is partnered with the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (MIRCI). Founded in 1998, MIRCI’s mandate is to provide a forum for the discussion and dissemination of research and writing on motherhood and to establish a community of individuals and institutions working and researching in the area of mothering and motherhood. Demeter, first and foremost, seeks to promote maternal scholarship and writing, both at the university and community level, by publishing books that speak to women’s diverse insights, experiences, ideas, stories, studies, and concerns about mothering, reproduction, sexuality and family. Founded in 2006, Demeter Press is the first publisher focused specifically on Mothering, Reproduction, Sexuality and Family. We are an independent feminist press committed to publishing peer-reviewed scholarly work and creative non-fiction on mothering, reproduction, sexuality and family issues. The press is named in honour of the Goddess Demeter, herstory’s most celebrated empowered and outraged mother. SPRING 2017 DEMETER PRESS SPRING 2017 C O N T E N T S SPRING 2017 FRONTLIST 2 FALL 2016 FRONTLIST 6 RECENT TITLES 11 BACKLIST 14 www.demeterpress.org The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund. spring Bad Mothers Listening to the Beat of Our Drum Regulations, Representations and Resistance Indigenous Parenting in Contemporary Society edited by Michelle Hughes Miller, Tamar Hager, and edited by Carrie Bourassa, Elder Betty McKenna 2017 Rebecca Jaremko Bromwich and Darlene Juschka While the image or construct of the “good mother” has been the Listening to the Beat of Our Drum: Stories of Parenting in a Con- frontlist focus of many research projects, the “bad mother,” as a discursive temporary Society is a collection of stories, inspired by a wealth construct, and also mothers who do “bad” things as complicated, of experiences across space and time from a kokum, an auntie, agentic social actors, have been quite neglected, despite the preva- two-spirit parents, a Metis mother, a Tlinglit/Anishnabe Métis lence of the image of the bad mother across late modern societies. mother and an allied feminist mother. This book is born out of The few researchers who address this powerful social image point the need to share experiences and stories. Storytelling is one of out that bad mothers are culturally identified by what they do, the most powerful forms of passing on teachings and values that yet they are also socially recognized by who they are. Mothers we have in our Indigenous communities. become potentially bad when they behave or express opinions that diverge from, or challenge, social or gender norms, or when This book weaves personal stories to explore mothering practices they deviate from mainstream, white, middle class, heterosexual, and examines historical contexts and under- nondisabled normativity. When suspected of being bad mothers, pinnings that contribute to contemporary women are surveilled, and may be disciplined, pun- parenting practices. We share our stories Carrie Bourassa is a the new Chair of Northern & Indig- Michelle Hughes Miller is an Associate Professor of ished or otherwise excluded, by various official agents with the hope that it will resonate with enous Health at Health Sciences North Research Institute in Sudbury after spending the last fifteen years as Professor Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of South (i.e. legal, medical and welfare institutions), as well readers whether they are in the classroom of Indigenous Health Studies at First Nations University of Florida. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology at as by their relatives, friends and communities. Too or in the community. Like our contributors, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln while raising two Canada. Her book, Métis Health: The Invisible Problem, often, women are judged and punished without clear we are from all walks of life, sharing diverse wonderful children with her husband, Rob Benford. As a based on her dissertation, was released in the fall of 2012. feminist criminologist she researches motherhood within evidence that they are neglecting or abusing their perspectives about mothering whether it Carrie is Métis, belonging to the Regina Riel Métis Council legal and policy constraints. In addition to publishing on children. Frequently they are blamed for the marginal be as a mother, auntie, kokum, or other #34. She resides in Regina with her husband, Chad and her criminalized and allegedly “bad” mothers, she is co-editor sociocultural context in which they are mothering. adopted role. daughters, Victoria and Lillie of Addressing and Preventing Violence Against Women on College Campuses (forthcoming) and Alliances for This anthology presents empirical, theoretical and Elder Betty McKenna is Anishnabae from the Shoal River Band Advancing Academic Women: Guidelines for Collabo- creative works that address the construct of the bad and is knowledgeable about many traditional teachings which rating in STEM (2014). mother and the lived realities of mothers labeled as bad. she has learned from her grandmother and from teachings Tamar Hager is a Senior Lecturer in the Departments of Throughout the volume, the editors consider voices of various other elders. She is the Elder in Residence, First Education and Gender Studies at Tel Hai College, Israel. and acts of resistance to bad mother constructions, Nations and Métis Education at the Regina Public School She is the founder and the former co-director of the col- demonstrating that mothers, across time and across Board as well as the guiding elder for RESOLVE (Research lege’s Center for Peace and Democracy. She published in domains, have individually and collectively taken a and Education to End Violence and Abuse) Saskatchewan. She serves on the College of Physicians and Surgeons Council 2000 a book of short stories, A Perfectly Ordinary Life (in stand against this destructive label. frontlist Hebrew) and in 2012, Malice Aforethought (in Hebrew). of Saskatchewan, the National Elders Advisory, Correctional Services Canada as well as numerous other committees. Rebecca Jaremko Bromwich is a mother of four who March 2017 works as lawyer, legal academic, writer, artist, and activ- 978-1-77258-106-5 Darlene Juschka teaches in Women’s and Gender Studies and 2017 ist.She has published articles and texts on many áreas of February 2017 $29.95 pb / 6 x 9 / 200 pp. Religious Studies at the University of Regina. Her publica- law as they related to mothers, gender, and equality and 978-1-77258-103-4 INDIGENOUS STUDIES/ tions include Political Bodies, Body Politic: The Semiotics is author of Looking for Ashley: Re-Reading What the $34.95 pb / 6 x 9 / 300 pp. MOTHERHOOD STUDIES / of Gender (2009) and Feminism in the Study of Religion: A Smith Case Reveals About Governance of Girls, Mothers, MOTHERHOOD STUDIES / WOMEN’S AND GENDER WOMEN’S AND GENDER STUDIES / Reader (2001). She is currently working on a book entitled and Families in Canada (Demeter Press, 2015). Rebecca STUDIES / SOCIOLOGY/ AVAILABLE AS E-BOOK AVAILABLE AS E-BOOK has been practicing law in Ontario, Canada, since 2003. Contours of the Flesh: The Semiotics of Pain. spring 2 demeter press www.demeterpress.org 3 spring Toni Morrison and Placenta Wit Mothers/Motherhood Mother Stories, Rituals, and Research edited by Lee Baxter and Martha Satz edited by Nané Jordan 2017 This collection of essays explores the gamut of Toni Morrison’s Placenta Wit is an interdisciplinary anthology of stories, rituals, and frontlist novels from her earliest to her most recent. Each of the essays research that explores mothers’ contemporary and traditional uses examines the various ways in which Morrison’s work delineates of the human afterbirth. Authors inspire, provoke and highlight and interrogates Western culture’s ideological norms of mothers, diverse understandings of the placenta and its role in mothers’ motherhood, and mothering. The essays consider Morrison’s female, creative life-giving. Through medicalization of childbirth, many and in some cases male, characters as challenging the concept that North American mothers do not have access to their babies’ pla- mothering and motherhood is a stable notion. The essays reveal centas, nor would many think to. Placentas are often considered both that mothering is a central concept in Morrison’s work and to be medical property, and/or viewed as the refuse of birth. Yet that an examination of this pervasive notion illuminates her corpus there is now greater understanding of mother- and baby-centred as a whole. birth care, in which careful treatment of the placenta and cord can play an integral role. In reclaiming birth at home and in clinical Toni Morrison and Mothers/Motherhood offers a wide range of settings, mothers are choosing to keep their placentas. There is a scholarship that provides a compelling look at Morrison’s work revival, and survival, of family and community rituals with the through an array of interdisciplinary approaches that are ground- placenta and umbilical cord, including burying, art making, and ed in feminist/gender studies. This interdisciplinary collection of consuming for therapeutic use. Claiming and honouring the pla- essays will be of interest to scholars and critics concerned with centa may play a vital role in understanding the sacredness the notions of how we define mother/motherhood/mothering and of birth and the gift of life that mothers bring. Nané Jordan, Ph.D., is a scholar-artist-edu- the problem of its interpretation within Western society as well as cator and mother of two teenage daughters, those engaged in the interpretation of African-American Placenta Wit gathers narrative accounts, scholarly essays, with a working background in pre-regulation literature, Morrison’s work in particular. creative pieces and artwork from this emergence of placental Canadian midwifery and postpartum doula interests and uses.

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