Matrix, Environment, Atmosphere: How Mother Became a Medium
From the mid-1940s until the 1960s and beyond, class, race, and maternal function were linked in metaphors of temperature in pediatric psychological studies of Bad Mothers. Newly codified diagnoses of aloof “refrigerator mothers” and overstimulating “hot mothers” were inseparable from midcentury conceptions of stimulation, mediation, domesticity, and race, including Marshall McLuhan’s theory of hot and cool media, as well as maternal absence and (over)presence, echoes of which continue in the present in terms like “helicopter parent.” Whereas autism and autistic states have been extensively elaborated in their relationship to digital media, this talk attends to attributed maternal causes of “emotionally disturbed,” queer, and neurodivergent children. The talk thus elaborates a media theory of mothering and parental “fitness.”
Date:
23 January 2025, 11:45
Venue:
St John's College, St Giles OX1 3JP
Venue Details:
New Seminar Room
Speaker:
Hannah Zeavin (UC Berkeley)
Organising department:
Faculty of History
Part of:
Centre for Women’s, Gender, Identity, and Queer History events (WGIQ)[formerly known as CGIS].
Booking required?:
Not required
Audience:
Public
Editor:
Belinda Clark
