CFP: Motherhood, Infertility and Vulnerability in Contemporary Irish Literature

Coedited by Nuria Torres, University of Almería, and Felicity Smith, University of Granada

Deadline for abstract submissions: 5th March, 2025

contact: Nuria Torres López and Felicity Smith

emails: nuria.torres@ual.es / felicity@correo.ugr.es

This book is about “motherhood”, something that has traditionally been considered a given for women, whereby special attention is paid to women’s desires and maternal instinct. However, over the last decades, there has been a rise in dissident voices that express the notion that motherhood may not necessarily be the ‘natural’ option for women. Such writers draw attention to how the patriarchal system may be forcing ideals of motherhood upon women in order to keep them submissive and out of other spheres. Moreover, many women decide not to become mothers. For some, this choice is simply down to an absence of ‘maternal instinct’, whilst for others it may be based on a preference of life without children. Regardless of their reasons, these women deserve both equal rights and equal respect, without critique or reproach.

Another topic that has come increasingly prominent is that of infertility. It has been suggested that one in 6-10 women are affected by infertility globally (WHO). Women who desire to have children but are unable to are often faced with convoluted feelings of emptiness and failure. Many find a terrible lack of understanding and empathy in their societies. The traumatic experiences that numerous women live as they undergo fertility treatment may result in experiences of extreme vulnerability. Taking all of the above into consideration, this volume aims to reflect how women feel both about motherhood and infertility, within their respective differences, and how vulnerability may affect such women.

Motherhood, Infertility and Vulnerability in Contemporary Irish Literature aims to explore how recent Irish literature, written by women, portrays the various aspects surrounding the concepts of motherhood, infertility and vulnerability from a feminist perspective. Whilst Ireland is a country with a history of problematic abortion laws and institutional violence against unmarried mothers, recent trends in memoir writing and personal essays (for example, Emilie Pine’s Notes to Self (2019) or Sinéad Gleeson’s Constellations (2019)), as well as the success of Irish fiction writers (for instance, Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These (2020)), mean that women’s voices on topics of motherhood and infertility in Ireland have never been as loud as they are today.

Feminist theory can help us understand the role of mothers in society, as well as reflect on the difference between motherhood as a desirable experience and motherhood as institution. In addition, Gender studies may also help us to reflect upon the relevance and empathy that society should offer to those women who suffer because of problems of infertility, as well as how vulnerable such women feel themselves in the middle of unending medical treatments.

All these issues are key to examining the multidimensionality of the female experience, whether as mothers with children, women wanting but with no children, or women who do not desire children. Within these diverse realities, we will also explore concepts that are tightly related to the experience of womanhood and motherhood: grief, guilt, vulnerability, shame, loss, imposition, anger, and resistance.

We invite non traditional, creative nonfiction, and experimental pieces as well as more traditional scholarly work. We seek contributions that consider (but are not limited to) the following topics:

• Motherhood in literature.
• Motherhood: anger, regret and/or vulnerability.
• Female resilience through infertility and loss.
• Infertility in literature.
• Motherhood: sociocultural expectations.
• Childless mothers: overcoming loss and grief.
• Mothers’ roles in society: from social imposition to individual experience.
• Vulnerability.

Please send the following to nuria.torres@ual.es  AND/OR felicity@correo.ugr.es before March 5, 2025:

1. a 400-500 word chapter abstract/proposal, and a 150 word bio indicating the author’s name, email and institutional affiliation, as a Word document
2. a 150 statement of your interest in this Project, as a separate Word document.

Deadline for submissions of abstracts: March 10, 2025.

Contributors will be notified of inclusion in the proposal by March 15, 2025. Final inclusion in the volume will be subject to peer review.

Those with accepted proposals will be expected to submit a full draft (5,000-6,000 words) before June 15, 2025.

Nuria Torres López, University of Almería, Spain (nuria.torres@ual.es)

Felicity Smith, University of Granada (felicity@correo.ugr.es ).