Submissions

The submissions process for the Journal of Mother Studies begins in the spring, so stay tuned! The CFP for the 2027 Conference is available here.

SUBMISSIONS WILL BE DUE MAY 1, 2027

This year’s theme explores the representations, constructions, and disruptions of m/otherhood across all forms of media. We understand media broadly: not only film, television, and streaming, but also literature, news, art, advertising, and consumer culture; health communication and public health messaging; social media and digital communities, including practices like “sharenting”; and algorithmic platforms and artificial intelligence. Media acts as both a mirror and a catalyst, shaping cultural narratives around caregiving, family, reproductive choices, maternal health, and maternal identity, and these narratives land differently depending on race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, and nation. Media is also a platform for subversion, activism, and community-building. As AI increasingly generates, curates, and targets the content people see, and as data-driven technologies track fertility, pregnancy, and parenting, the stakes of these narratives are shifting in ways that demand urgent attention.

We invite critical reflection and collective inquiry into how maternal and care-centered identities are depicted, challenged, and transformed through media, both human-made and machine-made. We seek work that examines media not only as entertainment or news, but as a deeply political and social force that influences public policy, health outcomes, consumer habits, cultural expectations, and personal lived experiences, including through the algorithms, datasets, and automated systems that increasingly mediate how m/others are seen, sold to, and surveilled.

This international call for papers, performances, panels, workshops, and creative projects welcomes contributions from across disciplines and practices, including scholars, artists, filmmakers, media practitioners, technologists, poets, sociologists, maternal psychologists, gender and sexuality studies faculty, birth-workers, students, and community members. We encourage submissions from people of all genders and backgrounds, particularly those centering queer, trans, disabled, Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), and marginalized perspectives.

We especially welcome work that uses innovative, decolonial, or creative methodologies; amplifies underrepresented or silenced media portrayals of m/otherhood; interrogates the biases, erasures, and possibilities of AI and emerging technologies; engages in activist or community-based media praxis; and challenges stereotypical “good mother” tropes, gendered roles, and commercialized narratives of family life.

Sub-Themes include (but are not limited to):

Algorithms, AI, and Future Technologies: AI-generated images and narratives of motherhood; algorithmic bias and whose families get seen; fertility, period, and pregnancy tracking apps and reproductive surveillance; chatbots and AI tools as sources of parenting and health advice; care labor and automation
Portrayals of Motherhood in Film, Television, and Streaming: Tropes, archetypes, and counter-narratives
Social Media, “Sharenting,” and Digital Communities: Building networks vs. navigating surveillance, recommendation algorithms, and “mom-tok” culture
Maternal Health, Justice, and News Media: Reporting on Black maternal mortality, reproductive rights, and health equity
Intersectional Representations: Queer, trans, disabled, BIPOC, and low-income m/others in pop culture
Advertising, Consumerism, and the Commercialized Family: Marketing care labor and mothering ideals, including through targeted and data-driven advertising
Artmaking, Independent Media, and Resistance: Using zines, podcasts, performance, visual art, and creative or critical uses of technology to reclaim maternal narratives
Historical Perspectives: The evolution of the “ideal mother” across legacy and emerging media formats

JOURNAL OF MOTHER STUDIES (JourMS): This call is open to scholars and artists from around the world. All submissions undergo double-blind peer review. We encourage MoM conference presenters to submit developed versions of their scholarly or creative work to the Journal of Motherhood Studies, but please note that presenting at the conference does not guarantee publication; submissions are evaluated on their own merits by reviewers in the field.

If you have questions, please write JourMS@gmail.com or leave a message: 877-711-MOMS (6667). We will return your call.