Imagining Motherhood in Contemporary Irish and Caribbean Literature

264 Pages·2016·1.92 MB·English

by  Abigail L. Palko (auth.)

NEW CARIBBEAN STUDIES
IMAGINING MOTHERHOOD IN
CONTEMPORARY IRISH AND
CARIBBEAN LITERATURE
ABIGAIL L. PALKO
New Caribbean Studies
Series Editors
Kofi Campbell
Laurier Brantford
Brantford , Ontario, Canada
Shalini Puri
Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania, USA
New Caribbean Studies series seeks to contribute to Caribbean self-
understanding, to intervene in the terms of global engagement with the
region, and to extend Caribbean Studies' role in reinventing various dis-
ciplines and their methodologies well beyond the Caribbean. The series
especially solicits humanities-informed and interdisciplinary scholarship
from across the region's language traditions.
More information about this series at
http://www.springer.com/series/14752
Abigail   L.   P alko
Imagining
Motherhood in
Contemporary Irish
and Caribbean
Literature
Abigail   L.   Palko
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana , USA
New Caribbean Studies
ISBN 978-1-137-60270-1 ISBN 978-1-137-60074-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-60074-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016942678
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2 016
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Cover illustration: “Virtual Omphalos” (detail of installation at Sao Paulo Biennial, 1996) by
Joscelyn Gardner
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For Barbara and Nora, who made me a daughter and a mother.
And for John, who made it all possible.

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
To begin at the beginning, I will forever be grateful to my parents, John
and Barbara, who, before my earliest memory, nurtured the love of read-
ing that sustained me throughout the process of writing this book—even
after they learned the necessity of rationing my library books when I was
ten years old. I’m especially grateful to my father, whose example demys-
tifi ed graduate school for me (thanks in large part to pairs of M&M’s
sealed in plastic); because of him, I never thought academia was some-
thing beyond my reach.
In the years that I have worked on I magining Motherhood in
Contemporary Irish and Caribbean Literature , I have benefi ted from the
generosity and support of a number of colleagues. The seeds of this proj-
ect sprouted from my dissertation, and it is with gratitude that I thank
my committee members: Joseph Buttigieg, who encouraged me to read
across boundaries and freely, and Alison Rice, whose unfailing generos-
ity of time began at a meeting in a Paris café across the street from the
Luxemburg Gardens and a book-buying spree in Gilbert-Joseph. And my
director, Maud Ellmann, who by serving as my ideal reader, has in subtle
but invaluable ways infl uenced my scholarly development. When I write,
her voice is in my ear, reminding me not to rely on the quote to make
my argument for me, but rather to trust my own prose. I thank her for
her encouragement, which reminds me of the value of my project. The
larger project has been incalculably shaped by the inspiration of Cristina
Traina and Catherine Hilkert, who introduced me to feminist theology
and responded to my work with such enthusiasm, and Andrea O’Reilly,
who has unceasingly advocated for the value of motherhood studies; their
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
guidance was crucial in the development of the theoretical framework of
my study.
Working interdisciplinarily opens exciting paths for exploration for a
scholar, but she also runs the risk of never quite fi tting into a particu-
lar department. I have had the great fortune to have found my home in
several academic communities: in the Gender Studies Program, Pamela
Wojcik’s enduring interest in my project, Barbara Green’s encouragement,
and Mary Celeste Kearney’s ebullient championing of my work have bol-
stered my confi dence in this project. I enjoyed an early affi rmation of
the project’s value from the responses of Guy Beiner, Beth Wightman,
Katie Gough, Kevin Whelan, and Declan Kiberd. I am grateful to the
community of the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, led by
Christopher Fox. I have also been welcomed into the Department of
Africana Studies, and truly appreciate the fellowship offered by my col-
leagues. Stacy Davis, Denise DellaRosa, Christine Caron Gebhardt, Janet
Kourany, April Lidinsky, Kate Marshall, Maria McKenna, Deb Rotman,
Sonalini Sapra, Yasmin Solomonescu, Mary Thompson, Jamie Wagman,
and Sophie White have all offered encouragement, commiseration, and
comfort at key moments in the process of writing this book, and I thank
them all.
Throughout the writing of my dissertation, Sîan White and Lauren Rich
read draft after draft after draft: they made sense of incoherent sentences
and were adamant that I could—and would—do this. In the process, they
became true friends, and it is a privilege and a pleasure to thank them here.
A trio of Sara(h)s have offered particular encouragement in the late stages
of writing: Sara Maurer’s encouraging observation that soon we’d be at a
book launch for me provided a much needed boost at that moment. Sarah
McKibben’s unfl agging pep talks banished all doubts from my mind. And
Sarah Townsend graciously and perceptively read Chaps. 1 and 2 for me;
her commentary was invaluable in the revision process.
I thank Joscelyn Gardner for her enthusiastic response when I asked
if I could use a slide of her multimedia installation “Virtual Omphalos”
as my cover image. Her creation of a uterine universe that enfolds the
viewer within its embrace, with its allusions to Amerindian creation myths,
provides the perfect visual introduction to my study. I owe a small intel-
lectual debt to the interviewer who asked me where the lesbian mother
was in my study, a query that ultimately prompted the second half of this
book; for this fortuitous question, I am grateful. I also thank the audi-
ence members at the various ACIS and NWSA conferences who offered
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
such astute feedback on this work in progress, as well as the anonymous
reviewer for this manuscript, whose critique greatly strengthened it. At
Palgrave Macmillan, I thank Brigitte Shull, for her enthusiastic response
to my project, and the series editors, Kofi Omoniyi Sylvanus Campbell
and Shalini Puri, for their shepherding of my project. At the University
of Notre Dame, I have benefi ted from the support of the Institute for
Scholarship in the Liberal Arts.
I am particularly grateful to the students too many to name who have
passed through my classrooms over the years, allowing me to share my
love of words—of reading and of writing—with them. I thank them for
listening to the voices I have introduced to them. It is in these moments
that the novels and theories have been most alive for me. I owe Matthew
Greene a shout-o ut for introducing me to Macklemore’s work. And I was
once a student: I thank S. Catherine Knobbs, who fi rst suggested to me
that I could (and should!) go down this path—and who I know has been
watching every step and cheering with the angels.
It would be hypocritical of me to neglect to thank the people who
provided care for Nora while I wrote this book: I owe a particular debt of
gratitude to you all for making it possible for me to work on this during
daylight hours. And to other very special women—Jennie, Beth, Patty,
and Sarah—who provided care for me during the years of writing: To my
mother-in-law, Pat, as well: thank you for welcoming me into your family
and your heart—and for reading my dissertation!
And to conclude—not with the end, but with another beginning—are
the thanks that I will spend the rest of my life offering. First, my husband,
John: Indiana has somehow been home for more years than we perhaps
care to count. Thank you for believing in me more fi rmly than I myself
do, for joining me on the journey, and for reminding me to laugh and
play. And the best, most gorgeous piece of primary research I did: our
daughter, Eleanor Grace, whose (at times, forceful) requests to “Read a
book!” have punctuated every chapter and reminded me daily why I love
what I do.