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Our consumer culture sets exacting standards and norms for what constitutes an ideal child. The tough realities of life often create children and child-bearing and rearing circumstances that are outside the ideal. How do women whose experiences don't match the norm cope and adapt? How do they make sense of it to themselves and to the world?
In a rich series of ethnographic case studies, Transformative Motherhood intimately conveys the experiences of women in the United States who, in each case, have reproductive encounters that do not match up to these cultural standards. From women who choose to become surrogate, foster, or adoptive mothers, to others who give birth to children with disabilities or who have had a pregnancy loss, all creatively meet the challenges posed by their particular mothering experiences. It is often the language of giving and getting, so prominent in a consumer culture, that these women use to make sense of their situation.
In the process, Transformative Motherhood redefines conventional understandings of motherhood, the mother/child relationship, and the role of biology and the law in determining what constitutes a family.
The contributors include Rayna Rapp, Helena Ragone, Judith A. Modell, Danielle Wozniak, Gail Landsman, and Linda L. Layne.
"This text opens up multiple possibilities for reading contemporary women as responsive speaking subjects involved in reconstructing and transferring meanings without consolidating or totalizing their outcomes."
?Resources for Feminist Research, Winter/Spring 2001, Vol. 28, No. _
"What were the values that helped to make Napoleon's armies the formidable fighting force they became? In this highly innovative study Michael Hughes shows how notions of honour became redefined to reward talent and courage and appeal to a sense of martial masculinity, while maintaining the sense of patriotic virtue that had been so potent during the Revolutionary years. The book is interdisciplinary in its approach, drawing on military studies and gender theory to create a highly convincing picture of the military culture of the Napoleonic era." Alan Forrest, Professor of Modern History, University of York "Michael Hughes provides the most fully developed and most highly nuanced account of motivation among the troops who composed Napoleon's Grande Armee Founded upon extensive research and enlightened by new cultural and gendered approaches, his volume traces the evolution of Napoleon's efforts to inspire, and manipulate, his soldiers and the effects of those efforts on officers and the rank and file. Hughes's application of new categories of analysis is not simply a voguish surface gloss; it is fundamental to the traditional military subjects he examines. His treatment of the evolution of military honor is particularly impressive and his innovative exposition of how the lure of sexual opportunity tempted the troops is a revelation Forging Napoleon's Grande Armee is a must read." John A. Lynn, Distiguished Professor of Military History, Northwestern University "Michael Hughes has produced a fascinating study exploring the motivation of French soldiers during the Napoleonic Era, and the process through which they became Napoleon's men Hughes book is an important contribution to the historiography of martial culture He does well to integrate various historical methodologies, producing an intelligent and well conceived book that provides another dimension to Napoleonic military history." Frederick C. Schneid, author of Napoleon's Conquest of Europe: The War of the Third Coalition
ISBN: 9780814737484
ISBN-10: 081473748X
Series: Warfare & Culture
Audience:
Tertiary; University or College
Format:
Hardcover
Language:
English
Number Of Pages: 304
Published: 7th May 2012
Dimensions (cm): 23.1 x 15.5
x 2.3
Weight (kg): 0.522
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