Carol Rifelj Faculty Lecture Series: Zohar Gazit - Reconstructing Motherhood Following Perinatal Loss

Zohar Gazit, Program in Modern Hebrew, will give a talk as part of the 2020-21 Carol Rifelj Faculty Lecture Series. This lecture explores Israeli women who suffered perinatal loss and reveals manners in which women frame the loss in a way that enables the performance of motherhood. Private and public activities, such as performing mourning rituals and commemorating the loss – even without mementos testifying to the child’s existence – are used to define the ambiguous event as a ‘death’ occurrence. By constructing the ‘non-person’, according to society, as a deceased person, women reconstruct their shattered maternal identity, presenting themselves as ‘bereaved mothers’, which is an accepted social status in Israeli society.

Please register in advance here.