Course Description

Mothers. We may not be one, but we all have them. Barbara Kingsolver describes the strength of motherhood as greater than natural laws. While motherhood has no bounds, mothers themselves can often have imperfect boundaries. Loving too much, or not enough. Neglecting, smothering. Effusive and warm, cold and dispassionate. Joy producing, guilt inducing. The Bible—old and new testaments, the Koran, the Buddhist Canons all tell mother stories. Oedipus is legendary. Freud made a living on it. But what stories do modern writers tell about the complex relationship between mothers and their sons and daughters?

We’ll explore this theme together through short stories by a diverse collection of writers as we examine stories of love and loss, guilt and gratitude, anger and acceptance, rebirth and retribution. 

The class is 100% facilitated discussion in which we learn by exploring the stories together. 

Please see the class ground rules.

ASSIGNMENTS

Each week of this website (see navigation bar at the top) details your assignment for that week's session. Please be sure to read all of the material on each week's page. Read each story at least twice—the first time to get the overall sense of the story, and the subsequent close reading(s) to analyze the story, considering the "think about" items I've included.  

All stories are posted as PDFs, so no book is required. I recommend that participants print the stories at home, if possible, so that you have the text available during class discussions.

The Zoom link for each class is provided at the top of the home page and on the footer of each page.

The ground rules are included on each week's page as a reminder of how to engage in a fruitful, respectful discussion.