This collection explores the concept of the Missing Mother from two inter-related standpoints: the mother as absent in society and the mother as absent in a woman’s selfhood. The first perspective considers why and how the mother/mothering is disregarded, discounted, or dismissed in art, literature, culture, policy, and law while the second perspective explores why and how a woman has marginalized, lost, forgotten, forfeited, or abandoned her individual maternal identity. Whether it is society that erases the maternal or a woman who forsakes it, the aim of this collection is to consider the why, how, what, who, and where of the mechanics of missing mother in both society and self. This collection considers reasons for this disavowal and disappearance of the maternal and shows how mothers can and do resist to recover and reclaim the maternal in society and self. Overall, this collection seeks to uncover and reveal the mother so marginalized and maligned in and by patriarchal culture and to show how women may find the missing mother in society and self and achieve empowerment in doing so.

Dr. Andrea O’Reilly is internationally recognized as the founder of Motherhood Studies (2006) and its subfield Maternal Theory (2007), and creator of Matricentric Feminism, a feminism for and about mothers (2016) and Matricritics, a literary theory and practice for a reading of mother-focused texts (2024). She is full professor in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at York University, founder/editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Motherhood Initiative and publisher of Demeter Press. She is co-editor/editor of thirty plus books on many motherhood topics including: Feminist Mothering, Young Mothers, Monstrous Mothers, Maternal Regret, Normative Motherhood, Mothers and Sons, Mothers and Daughters, Maternal Texts, Academic Motherhood, Mothers on Finding and Realizing Feminism and Mothering and Covid-19. She is editor of the Encyclopedia on Motherhood (2010) and co-editor of the Routledge Companion to Motherhood (2019). She is author of Toni Morrison and Motherhood: A Politics of the Heart (2004); Rocking the Cradle: Thoughts on Motherhood, Feminism, and the Possibility of Empowered Mothering (2006); and Matricentric Feminism: Theory, Activism, and Practice, The 2nd Edition (2021). Forthcoming titles include: The Mother Wave: Theorizing, Enacting, and Representing Matricentric Feminism , The Missing Mother, and Revolutionizing Motherlines. She is currently completing her monograph Matricritics as Literary Theory and Criticism: Reading the Maternal in Post-2010 Women’s Narratives. Matricritics as Literary Theory and Criticism: Reading the Maternal in Post-2010 Women’s Narratives. She is twice the recipient of York University’s “Professor of the Year Award” for teaching excellence and is the 2019 recipient of the Status of Women and Equity Award of Distinction from OCUFA (Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations). She has received more than 1.5 million dollars in grant funding for her research projects including two current ones: “Millennial Moms” and “Mothers and Returning to ‘Normal’: The Impact of the Pandemic on Mothering and Families.”

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Martina Mullaney is currently Post-Doctoral Researcher on the Feminist Art Making Histories Project at the Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dún Laoghaire, Ireland. She holds an AHRC-funded Ph.D. in art from the University of Reading 2022. Her Ph.D. The Missing Mother by practice and thesis asks ‘How art on and of maternity can transcend its own audience? She convened The Missing Mother Conference in 2021 from which this publication comes. After the birth of her daughter, she initiated the project Enemies of Good Art 2009 a multi-disciplinary research project interrogating motherhood as experience and the art world. The project was executed through a series of public meetings, performances, lectures, and live radio discussions. Enemies of Good Art broadcast on Resonance 104.4FM between between 2021 and 2012. Events took place in London at; Tate Modern, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Southbank Centre and Chisenhale Gallery. In Europe at Tranzit Display Gallery in Prague, Czech Republic and Galerija Nova, Zagreb. She has worked on visual project with Balenciaga, Paris, The British Council, Sri Lanka and Georgia, Cork Film Center, Gallery of Photography Dublin and Ffotogallery, Cardiff, Wales. She is a recipient of the Red Mansion Art Prize, London and China. Her work has been exhibited with Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, Franekel Gallery, San Francisco, Artwall Gallery, Prague and The Mission Gallery, Swansea.

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