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Mothering in the African Diaspora:
Literature, History, Society, Popular Culture and the Arts

February 4-6, 2000

Program

Friday, February 4th, 2000

4:00-7:00 Registration

4:00-6:00 Interactive Session

"Black Mothers/Black Daughters and the Journey to Superwoman in the African Diaspora."
Presented by:
Wanda Bernard Thomas
Lana MacLean
Josephine Enang
Joanne Henderson White (Dalhousie University)
Candace Bernard
Chioma Ekpo, (Mount St Vincent University)
and Bertlyn Joseph (McGill University)

7:00-9:00 Opening Address

"Mothering in the African Diaspora"
by Patricia Hill Collins, Charles Phelpes Taft Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Cincinnati

9:00-11:00 Welcome Reception

Saturday February 5th, 2000

8:00-9:00 Coffee/Tea, Muffins

9-00-11:00 Concurrent Sessions

African American Families
Gerry Ginsberg, (York University)
"Theoretical Models of African-American Family Values"
April Few, (University of Georgia)
"The (Un)making of Martyrs: Black Mothers, Daughters and Intimate Violence"
Priscilla Gibson, (University of Denver)
"Involvement to Mission: The Developmental Caregiving Process of African-American Grandmothers to New Mothers"
The Black Maternal Figure in Popular Culture and Religion
Carol Duncan, (Wilfred Laurier University)
"Re-inventing Aunt Jemima in the Spiritual Baptist Church: Confronting the "Past" in an African-Caribbean Religion"
Sheri Parks, (University of Maryland)
"Lion Mother of the National Soul: The Black Maternal Figure in the Popular Culture of the United States"
Yvonne Atkinson, (California State University)
"The Aunt Jemima Trope in American Literature and Culture"
Toni Morrison: Session One
Gudrun Grabher, (University of Innsbruck, Austria)
"Mothering Daughters Unto Death: An Existentialist Reading of the Womb/Tomb Dialect in Toni Morrison's Beloved"
Michelle Loris, (Sacred Heart)
"Mothers in Toni Morrison's Jazz"
Jane Donovan, (Howard University)
"Morrison's Mothers"

11:00-11:30 BREAK

11:30-1:00 Concurrent Sessions

Africarribean Literatures: Session One
Dannabang Kuwabong, (McMaster University)
"Reading the Gospel of Bakes: Daughters' Representations of Mothers in the Poetry of Claire Harris and Lorna Goodison"
Joan Anin-Addo, (Goldsmiths, University of London)
"To Build a Better Future For Their Children: Generational shifts and post-Windrush West Indian women of Joan Riley's fiction"
Adolescent Girls in the African Diaspora: Connection and Empowerment
Dolana Mogadime, (O.I.S.E., University of Toronto)
"Teaching Black Women Centered Literature to Pre-Adolescent Elementary School Girls"
Barbara Turnage
Claudette Lee (University of Nebraska)
"Enhancing an Adolescent African American Female's Global Self-Esteem Level"
Venetria Patton, (University of Nebraska)
"Preserving Our Daughters: Mothers' Socialization of Black Girls"
Young and/or Single Black Motherhood
Sunday Taylor, (Boston College)
"The Problematization of Black Single Motherhood in the USA: A holistic approach to identifying and addressing goals"
Crystal'Aisha PerrymanMark, (York University)
"Mothering: Young, Black and Feminist"

1:30-2:30 LUNCH

2:30- 4:30 Concurrent Sessions

Toni Morrison: Session Two
Andrea O'Reilly, (York University)
"Delivering Divinity: Maternal Redemption and Resistance in Toni Morrison's Paradise"
Cath Stowers, (University of York, UK)
"Journeying Back to the Mother: Pilgrimages of Maternal Redemption in Michele Roberts and Toni Morrison"
Adonay Custodia dos Santos Moreira, (University of Coimbra, Spain)
"Toni Morrison and the Construction of the African American Mother Figure"
Maternal Subjectivities in the African Diaspora
Nina Lyon Jenkins, (Clark Atlanta University)
"Black Mothers: Understanding Their Lives, Centering Their Experiences"
Sue-Marie Wright, (Eastern Washington University)
"Educated Mothers As a Tool for Change: Possibilities and Constraints"
Farah Mawani, (Women's Health Centre)
"The Cultural Determinants of Maternal Morbidity Among the Maasi"
Masculinities and Mother Son Relations in the African Diaspora: Session One
Afua Cooper, (Poet, Toronto)
"Letters on Reaching the Age of Majority: A Black Mother Speaks to her Son"
Wanda Thomas Bernard, (Dalhousie University)
"Bringing Our Boyz to Men: Revisiting the Role of African Mothers in the Diaspora"

6:00-10:00 Dinner
(A Cash Bar will be open at 5:00 p.m. for those attending the dinner and Author Reading and Reception.)

Sunday February 6th, 2000

8:00-9:00 Coffee/Tea and Muffins

9:00 -10:30 Concurrent Sessions

Masculinities and Mother and Son Relations in the African Diaspora: Session Two
Ethel Hill Wilson and Claudette Lee(University of Nebraska)
"Masculinity, Matriarchy & Myth: A Black Feminist Perspective"
Andrea O'Reilly, (York University)
"In Black and White: African American and Anglo-American Feminist Theorizing on the Mother-Son Relationship"
Mothering and Motherhood in African American and Africaribbean Literatures
Shara McCallum, (Binghamton University)
"The Water Between Us: Poetry and Mothering in the African Diaspora"
Carolyn Mitchell, (Union College)
"Mother and Master: Diaspora Displacement in the Novels of Garcia, Danticat and Marshall"
Elizabeth Borque Johnson, (University of Minnesota)
"Three Black Mothers: Icons on the Literary Continuum"
Representations of African American Mothers: Popular Culture and the State
Jennifer Harris, (York University)
""The More You Look, The More You See: Josephine Baker, Motherhood, Nation, Race and Identity"
Andrea Liss, (California State University)
"Revisioning the Maternal Body: Loving Difference in Ngozi Onwurah's The Body Beautiful "
Barrington Walker
"Killing the Black Female Body: Black Womanhood and Black Patriarchy in Two 19th Century Ontario Criminal trials 1892-1894"
Maternal Connections in the African Diaspora: Session One
Charmaine Crawford, (York University)
"Black Women, Illness and Othermothering"
Arlene E. Edwards, (Georgia State University)
"Common Themes, Common Schemes: Similarities Between the Community Work of Black Women and The Practice of Community Psychology"

10:30-10:45 BREAK

10:45-12:30 Concurrent Sessions

Motherlines in the African Diaspora
Sylvia Hamilton, (Dalhousie University)
"African Nova Scotian Women: Mothering Across the Generations"
Charlotte Harris (University of Georgia) and Sharon Abbey (Brock University)
"Motherline Connections Across Cultures and Generations"
Astrid Henry, (University of Wisconsin)
"Generational Relationships in Black Feminisms"
Maleness and Masculinities in African Diaspora Literatures
Rinaldo Walcott, (York University)
"How to Raise Black Queer Kids: Reading My Brother and The Women"
Philip Page, (University of San Bernardino)
"The Infinite History of Our Lives Intersecting: Integration and Isolation in John Edgar's Fiction"
Anna Mae Duane, (Fordham University)
"The Great White Father: Mothers, Sons and White Privilege in Frank J. Webb's The Garies and their Friends"
African Mothering Across the Diaspora
Michelle Johnson, (University of Illinois)
"A Passport to Alijani (The Next World)': Raising Manding Children in Lisbon Portugal"
Helena Oikarinen-Jabai, (The University of Art and Design in Helsinki)
"Does Colour Matter?"

12:30-1:30 Lunch 1:30-3:00 Concurrent Sessions

Mothering and Motherhood in African Literatures
D.M Akande
"Motherhood Under Duress in Africa as Reflected in the African Novel"
Juliana Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi, (University of Southern Mississippi)
"Egg Ritual and Testing in selected African and African American Texts"
Suzanne Picher, (University of Innsbruck, Austria)
"Mothering/Motherhood in Buchi Emcheta's The Joys of Motherhood and Kehinde: The Binary Opposition of Enslavement and (Self-) Fulfillment"
Maternal Identities in the African Diaspora
Ivy Schwietzer, (Dartmouth College)
"The Mammy and the Mummy: Race, Motherhood and Solidarity"
Elizabeth Yeoman, (Memorial University)
"The Other Within the Self: Black Daughter, White Mother and the Narrative Construction of Identity"
Janis Anthea Prince, (University of Southern California)
"Who's Your Momma? Biological versus Experiential Notions of Motherhood"
Maternal Connections in the African Diaspora: Session Two
Ruby Newman, (York University)
"Going Home: Survival Narratives of Ethiopian Jewish Mothers and Daughters"
Farah Mawani, (Women's Heath Centre, Toronto)
"Sharing Attachment Practices Across Cultures"
Africaribbean Literatures: Session Two
Nancy, Gobatto, (University of Windsor)
"A Daughter of Slavery: Resistance to Motherhood in The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave Related by Herself"
Greta LeSeur, (University of Missouri-Columbia)
"Castration and Merging in Annie John and Brown Girl Brown Stones"
Christine Tutlewski, (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
"Quiet as it's Kept": The Promise of Community Mothering in Toni Morrison's Beloved and Paradise

 

Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement
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