Early modern mothers
Nieves Romero-Díaz, Mount Holyoke College professor of Spanish on the Alumnae Foundation, spoke with New Books Network about the new book she has coedited on the subject of early modern maternity.
Nieves Romero-Díaz, Mount Holyoke College professor of Spanish on the Alumnae Foundation, is coeditor of a new book called “Early Modern Maternities in the Iberian Atlantic.” This groundbreaking collection is the first to focus on women’s stories about motherhood in the Iberian Peninsula and the Americas before the modern definition of motherhood took shape.
Drawing on letters, diaries, artwork and other rare sources, the book reveals how women of different races and classes experience pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and parenting.
In an interview with New Books Network, Romero-Díaz and her coeditor Emily Colbert Cairns of Salve Regina University discussed how they also examined the moments when women chose not to speak about these experiences, showing how silence can be just as powerful as speech.
“We needed to have different experts and approach different types of documentation and [think] out of the box of where to find those voices,” Romero-Díaz said. “Or, if there are no explicit expressions of motherhood … how to read the silence as well.”
