Motherhood in Literature

In rekto:verso (1 september 2020) klaagt Anne Van den Dool de schaamtecultuur aan rond bewuste kinderloosheid en twijfels of spijt over moederschap. Ze verwijst naar het recente werk van drie auteurs: Sheila Heti, die in Moederschap haar eigen kinderloosheid probeert te verantwoorden; Rachel Cusk, die de shock van het moederschap beschrijft in A Life’s Work; en Saskia De Coster, die moederschap en schrijverschap moeilijk kan verzoenen in Nachtouders. De werken konden op negatieve reacties rekenen, en het artikel noemt die schaamtecultuur dan ook een taboe, maar is dat wel zo? Er zijn heel wat recente series (Kinderwens, Motherland…) en opiniestukken (Linde Merckpoel in De Standaard, 10 augustus 2020) met dezelfde boodschap. Het thema verhit de gemoederen, maar wordt wel besproken. Waar veel minder over wordt gepraat – en wat misschien een groter taboe is – is dat moederschap waardevol is.

Cho Namju’s 82-nyŏnsaeng Kim Chiyŏng is a 2016 bestselling Korean novel that has received international attention. Having achieved immense popularity in Korea, the novel has become a centerpiece of recent feminist discussions in Korea through its exposure of contradictions in and between the patriarchal regime and a neoliberal society. This article explores the tensions and contradictions of these two models of social organization and their uneasy alliance in this novel, particularly in the narrated experiences of young mothers.

Elena Ferrante has often been called the most important Italian writer of her generation. Her devoted following of readers across the globe consume her works with a passion that journalists have called "Ferrante fever." "[P]eople take sick leave from work in order to read the novels," writes Norwegian journalist Gudmund Skjeldal. "They're absent-minded, as if they were drugged; will I be able to read Ferrante while I'm standing in line over there? Or in the lavatory? They forget about their children, they forget about their spouse." This course will explore the world of Elena Ferrante and its passions: both those she writes about and those that she evokes in her readers. We will start by discussing the pleasures and the unpleasures of reading Ferrante, with reference to writings by Barthes and Freud. In the second half of the course, we will turn to the many and varied "troubling loves" that appear throughout her oeuvre, particularly between mothers and daughters: the desires (and desirability) of the maternal body, as well as the daughter's "devouring" desire for the mother. This course will be taught in English.