Jan Monk Lecture
When
Please join us for our Spring 2026 Colloquium series!
Help us welcome Dr. Beverley Mullings (Professor, Department of Geography & Planning, University of Toronto) to present
“The Curious Resurgence of the Maternal in a World in Need of Care.”
Abstract: Across the world there is a resurgence of the maternal. From the rise of the traditional ‘trad’ wife subculture promoting motherhood, domesticity, and homemaking, to the call to infuse Artificial Intelligence (AI) with maternal instincts, the maternal has seemingly become the antidote to a world besieged with multiple and overlapping crises. In this talk I revisit the resurgence of the maternal and contradictory relations of care that it evokes. I argue that the maternal turn is a distraction that serves not only to obscure the severity of today’s poly crises, but also, to authorize new and deepening forms of extraction, abandonment, and violence. Thinking from the Caribbean – a region subject to permanent poly crises, I detail how spatial and temporal care principles continue to guide and ground human and other than human life, and the conditions of possibility for embedding these principles in spaces and at scales beyond community.
This talk is free to attend and takes place in room S107 of the ENR2 building on Friday, April 10, 2026 from 3:30-5pm. All are welcome!
ZOOM LINK: https://arizona.zoom.us/j/81234340707
Followed by Happy Hour at Screwbean (103 N Park Ave)