Faculty Colloquium Series: Anna Wolfe (COMM) 10/27/2020
“From ‘Sin’ to ‘Sacrifice’: Adoption Stories of Birth Mother Bravery“
Zoom Meeting information:
Meeting ID: 934 5201 8658
Password: Wolfe
https://tamu.zoom.us/j/93452018658?pwd=amRydzRlNVk0LzlyRXhyeXFjWmFMZz09
Dr. Anna Wolfe
Associate Professor, Communication, 2020-21 Glasscock Internal Faculty Residential Fellow
Abstract:
This presentation centers on a draft chapter of an ongoing book project, tentatively titled “Love the Sinner: How Visions of Virtue and Vice Shape America.” This chapter interweaves the author’s family adoption story with an analysis of stories from a Christian media advocacy organization called BraveLove, which uses storytelling to “to erase any shame surrounding adoption and instead show how adoption can be an amazing act of love and bravery.” As a form of curated stories, the adoption stories shared on BraveLove function politically to destigmatize certain birth mother experiences and to silence others. This chapter highlights how efforts to destigmatize birth mothers by shifting attention from “sin” to “sacrifice” simultaneously reinforce a dominant ideology of intensive mothering.
The Faculty Colloquium offers faculty an opportunity to discuss a work-in-progress with faculty and graduate students from different disciplines. By long-standing practice, colloquium presenters provide a draft of their current research, which is made available to members of the Glasscock Center listserv. Each colloquium begins with the presenter’s short (10-15 minute) exposition of the project, after which the floor is open for comments and queries. The format is by design informal, conversational, and interdisciplinary.
The paper is available to members of the Center’s listserv, or by contacting the Glasscock Center by phone at (979) 845-8328 or by e-mail at glasscock@tamu.edu.
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