EP06: Mammies, Nannies, and Reproductive Labor

Cora joins us again to to discuss race, blackness, mothering and motherhood, and reproductive labor. You can explore Cora’s work at https://polychora.org/.

Topics Touched:

housewifery as administrative experience, the institution of “hired help,” the legacy of slavery, the archetype of the mammy, controlling images, Octavia Spencer, black female characters in film, the perverse psychodrama of US whiteness, the wild psychosexual landscape of global white imperialism, our own moms

Works Cited:

• Patricia Hill-Collins – Black Feminist Thought


• H. Rider Haggard – King Solomon’s Mines


• Ralph Ellison – Invisible Man


• The Help


• Hidden Figures


• The Shape of Water


• Annabelle


• Girl Interrupted


• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen


• Jules Verne – 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea


• Lindsay Ellis – “My Monster Boyfriend”