Marking the Maternal in Queer Theory

• In Event: Queer’s Affective Histories

Abstract

This talk urges us to think through the mother in a non-essentialist way. Using Melanie Klein's framework of reparative reading practice, this talk urges a return to third world women of color feminisms such as Cherrie Moraga, Gloria Anzaldua and Audre Lorde in order to read the mother and kinship differently. These new formations of the mother and rereading of 1980s feminisms center difference and allow us to think through affective communities in a new light. They also allow us to imagine the maternal in queer theory as a space of possibility and desire rather than negation.

Presenter

• Amber Musser, Washington University, St. Louis