In this essay, I will explore the connection between failure, haunting and structures of power, and of care, by talking about the shared failures of the ghost and the mother. My wider research proposes parallels between the figure of the ghost and the (figurative and real) mother. I see many of these parallels as present in the ‘failures’ (I can’t stress the inverted commas enough) that I believe these figures end up sharing, and this will be my focus here.
View More Failure: The Ghost and the MotherAuthor: Anna Johnson
Anna Johnson is currently undertaking a PhD in Creative Writing at Kingston University. Her practice is one of poetic-prose life writing and her research focuses on the intersections of maternal studies, disability and illness writing, neurodiversity and queer theory. Anna’s PhD study explores the ways in which the language of the spectral – ghosts and hauntings – offers a possible route to the expression of difficult-to-articulate experiences, such as the strangeness of early motherhood. Anna’s practice of poetic-prose life writing deals with the complexity and ambivalence of early motherhood, offering something like an immersion into the affects of care. Anna aims to create writing that is made more poetic by its honesty and more honest by its poetics.
Anna’s recent publications include chapters in the collections, Women in Transition: Crossing Boundaries, Crossing Borders, Routledge, 2021, and From Band-Aids to Scalpels: Motherhood Experiences in/of Medicine, Demeter Press, 2021. Further details about her work and publications can be found at: https://annaotheranna.wixsite.com/mysite