{"product_id":"matrescence-and-performance-laura-bissell-9781835952269","title":"Matrescence and Performance: Becoming\/Unbecoming","description":"\u003cb\u003eChallenging the myths, silences, and stereotypes of motherhood through the live body in performance.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eMatrescence and Performance\u003c\/i\u003e examines what performance can do to challenge and expand conventional representations of becoming a mother. Across art history and literature, maternal bodies, along with the processes of pregnancy, childbirth, and sustenance, have often been cast as uncanny, abject, grotesque, monstrous, or hybrid. Societal conventions and myths about \"good\" and \"bad\" mothers have further constrained the depiction of maternal ambivalence and labor, leaving the lived experiences of matrescence largely invisible in galleries, mainstream art, and media. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Bringing together the work of artist mothers in contemporary performance, this book shows how live bodies can subvert dominant myths and disrupt the erasure of maternal experience. Through strategies of mimesis, liveness, embodiment, relationality, and performativity, these artists reframe historically pejorative concepts and aesthetics in new feminist ways. Performance becomes a site where becoming a mother is understood as both a becoming and an unbecoming, opening up a richer and more nuanced vocabulary for matrescence. Interdisciplinary in scope, this volume will appeal to students and scholars across the arts and cultural studies, as well as a wider readership interested in artist mothers, feminist art practices, and lived experiences of matrescence. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Laura Bissell\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1835952267\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781835952269\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Intellect (UK)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/20\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 190\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover","brand":"Laura Bissell","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":48588361105663,"sku":"9781835952269","price":99.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/matrescence-and-performance-laura-bissell-9781835952269","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}