Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book addresses the complex negotiations surrounding fertility, the invisibility of maternal potential, and the theatrical labor of performing the reproductive body. It explores the currency of pregnancy in Lisa Loomer’s Expecting Isabel, and the resulting social value ascribed to the reproductive potential of women. The book focuses on the issues of the first part by thinking about rescripting in a different way: through legacy and feminist interventions into narrative histories. It looks with an eco-feminist eye at the tropes of natural, unnatural, and supernatural motherhood in order to probe the relationships between motherhood, gender violence, social justice, and climate change. The book deals with Teresa Simone’s chapter on dance moms, which continues the exploration of the national implications of motherwork to look critically at the labor of putting children on stage.