Past Events
Doing Gender in the Netherlands: Taking Turns in Feminist Theory
National Research Day for PhD students in the field of Gender, Ethnicity, Sexuality and Diversity
Friday 5 April, 2013 – Maastricht University
The annual National Research Day dedicated to the cutting edge work of junior researchers of Dutch universities in the field of Gender, Ethnicity, Sexuality and Diversity. This year the National Research Day Organisers: Netherlands Research School of Genderstudies (NOG). This year the National Research Day was hosted by the Centre for Gender and Diversity
Dr. Roel van den Oever graduated with distinction (cum laude) on 15 June 2012
Dominant Mothers, Queer Sons: (Un)doing Momism in Postwar American Culture
Doing Gender in the Netherlands: Taking Turns in Feminist Theory
National Research Day for PhD students in the field of Gender, Ethnicity, Sexuality and Diversity
Friday 5 April, 2013 – Maastricht University
The annual National Research Day dedicated to the cutting edge work of junior researchers of Dutch universities in the field of Gender, Ethnicity, Sexuality and Diversity. This year the National Research Day Organisers: Netherlands Research School of Genderstudies (NOG). This year the National Research Day was hosted by the Centre for Gender and Diversity
Dr. Roel van den Oever graduated with distinction (cum laude) on 15 June 2012
Dominant Mothers, Queer Sons: (Un)doing Momism in Postwar American Culture
In postwar America, sociologists and psychiatrists advanced the idea that an over-affectionate or too-distant mother – or better, Mom – hampers the social and psychosexual development of her son, in extremis causing conditions such as asthma, autism, and schizophrenia. Deemed worst of all was a queer son, since the period witnessed a virulent homophobia as exemplified by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s twin crusades against the Red and the Lavender Scare.
This dissertation offers interpretations of four American fictional texts from the period, each featuring a dominant mother and her queer son. They are the novel The Grotto (Grace Zaring Stone, 1951), the play Suddenly Last Summer (Tennessee Williams, 1958), the film Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960), and the novel Portnoy’s Complaint (Philip Roth, 1969). It is argued that these texts at once confirm and contest the (il)logic of Momism and its attendant homophobia.
In addition, the dissertation reflects on certain aspects of the practice of interpretation, in particular oppositional reading, narrative closure, character engagement, and laughter’s meaning-effects. In doing so, it proposes a reading strategy – the reader is active, politically engaged, erotically invested, self-aware, and willing to perform the necessary narratological labor – that enables future critics to undo Momism and homophobia in other texts.
Supervisors: Prof. Maaike Meijer (Maastricht University); Prof. renée hoogland (Wayne State University)
The M-WORD
Symposium Centre for Gender and Diversity
On March 2, 2012, the Centre for Gender and Diversity commemorated the end of Maaike Meijer’s directorship with a festive symposium, called “The M-Word”. Members of the Centre as well as colleagues from gender studies departments at other Dutch universities presented short and snappy lectures on representations of motherhood in diverse cultural practices (religious painting, classical mythology, photography, fiction, satire, performance art, etc.).
Maaike herself delivered a magnificent parting speech on “The Mother as Metaphor: Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. The symposium was concluded by the new director, Lies Wesseling, with a presentation on practices of mothering within the “global care chain” (Arlie Hochschild). The symposium demonstrated that gender and diversity studies are alive and kicking, with an urgent agenda for the twenty-first century that gives priority to the intersections between gender, religion, and age.
Points of Exit
Conferentie op 19 en 20 maart 2009: Points of exit: (Un)conventional Representations of Age, Parenting, and Sexuality ter gelegenheid van het 10 jarig bestaan van het Centrum voor Gender en Diversiteit
Click the picture to the right for more information.
Symposium ter gelegenheid van het afscheid van Prof. Mineke Bosch op 21 november 2008
Lustrum voor Centrum voor Gender en Diversiteit in 2008
Symposium over de controverse omtrent het schoonheidsideaal. Op 27 juni 2008.
