News
Last Taboo of Motherhood at Warwick Arts Centre's Resonate Festival
The Last Taboo of Motherhood project team, based in the Centre for the History of Medicine, are pleased to announce that their project with Fuel Theatre, also entitled The Last Taboo of Motherhood, will feature in Warwick Arts Centre’s Resonate Festival from 4-11 November 2023. There will be a panel discussion about the creation of the work in the Arts Centre on 8 November at 7.45pm.
The Last Taboo of Motherhood is a series of three individual audio plays illuminating an area of women’s health which has been historically overlooked: postnatal mental illness. The project draws on research by Dr Kelly Couzens, Dr Fabiola Creed and Professor Hilary Marland, and is informed by a variety of historical sources, including first hand testimonies from and by women in twentieth-century Britain. These pieces probe vital questions about women’s experiences and the pervasive culture of silence around maternal mental health.
The audios will be installed in Warwick Arts Centre foyer. Attendance is free.
Click here for more information on the Festival and updates on the panel discussion.
For details of further tour dates, please see here
‘Women on the Edge: Motherhood & the Family in Turmoil in the Twentieth Century’: Workshop Summary
On the 7 – 8 September 2023, Dr Kelly-Ann Couzens and Professor Hilary Marland and hosted a two-day workshop at the Centre for the History of Medicine, University of Warwick, entitled ‘Women on the Edge: Motherhood & the Family in Turmoil in the Twentieth Century’. The event was generously funded by the Wellcome Trust as part of the Last Taboo of Motherhood? Postnatal Mental Disorders in the Twentieth Century: (2021& 2024) project.
The objective of the workshop was to bring together scholars working in history, criminology and law, whose research explores the relationship between motherhood, mental or emotional states, and criminality within the family, in the long twentieth century. More specifically, we were keen to focus on the role psychiatric, legal, “expert”, and popular thinking has had in understanding “deviant” female behaviour in the past. We were also interested in reflecting upon sources and critical approaches for recovering these complex histories as well as discussing the challenges researchers have encountered in tackling these themes on both a personal and methodological level.
Women on the Edge: Motherhood and the Family in Turmoil in the Twentieth Century
Over the 7 – 8 September 2023, the Centre for the History of Medicine at the University of Warwick is hosting a workshop, entitled: “Women on the Edge: Motherhood & the Family in Turmoil in the Twentieth Century".
The two-day workshop is co-organized by Dr Kelly-Ann CouzensLink opens in a new window and Professor Hilary MarlandLink opens in a new window, and generously funded by the Wellcome Trust.
With contributions from scholars working in the fields of history, criminology and legal studies, this event aims to grapple with the interplay between motherhood, mental or emotional states and broader themes of criminality, neglect, abandonment and violence within the family in the long twentieth century.
This workshop is particularly interested in the role psychiatric, legal, “expert”, and popular thinking have had in understanding “deviant” female behaviour and its impact upon women themselves, their families and society at large.
Places are limited; if you are interested in attending, please register here.