Melissa Schoeffel Livres

Maternal Conditions analyzes the depiction of motherhood in the works of Barbara Kingsolver, Ana Castillo, Louise Erdrich, and Ruth Ozeki. The book examines the politics underlying and engendered by ethnically diverse representations of the maternal, interrogating the dominant cultural understanding of the good mother. This analysis then moves to a study of how the subjective experience of mothers is portrayed in these writings, ending with an exploration of the relationship between motherhood and ethics.