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Abby Palko

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apalko

Abby Palko

Director of the Residential Commons Program

Department/Office Information

Residential Life

As the inaugural Director of the Residential Commons Program at 黑料网, I work with and across the four Residential Commons to support the intellectual life component of 黑料网鈥檚 Living-Learning communities. My own undergraduate years, spent in the liberal arts tradition, were a profound influence on me, both professionally and personally, and I bring this conviction of their transformative power to my work with the Residential Commons Program.

My scholarship focuses on cultural and literary representations of mothers and motherhood, with a particular interest in the ways that rhetoric about motherhood shapes and influences women's mothering practices. I serve as a Board Member for IAMAS (the International Association of Maternal Action and Scholarship). I have taught course in Irish literature, comparative literature, gender studies, and motherhood studies at every level from middle school through graduate school.

When I reread the concluding stanza to Robert Frost鈥檚 poem, 鈥淭wo Tramps in Mud,鈥 the words echo through my mind in my English advisor鈥檚 voice and I remember the great gift it was to be encouraged to 鈥渦nite / My avocation and my vocation.鈥 Perhaps the greatest lesson I learned during my undergraduate studies is encapsulated in Frost鈥檚 final lines:
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For heaven and the future鈥檚 sakes.
The memory of her verbal inflections carries me right back to the classroom in Fournier Hall where we discussed poetry and novels and plays 鈥 and what it means to read and think and live and be in today鈥檚 world. Although the 鈥渨hen鈥 of today has changed, the heart of a liberal arts education remains for me: work as play for the sake of the future.

BA, English and French, Chestnut Hill College; MA, English, Rutgers University (Camden); PhD, Literature with a graduate minor in Gender Studies, University of Notre Dame

Book 

Imagining Motherhood in Contemporary Irish and Caribbean Women鈥檚 Writing. New Caribbean Studies series edited by Kofi Omoniyi Sylvanus Campbell and Shalini Puri. Palgrave Macmillan. 2016.

Edited Anthologies

Monstrous Mothers: Troubling Tropes; co-editor with Andrea O鈥橰eilly. Demeter Press, 2021. 

Feminist Responses to the Neoliberalization of the University: From Surviving to Thriving; co-editor with Sonalini Sapra and Jamie Wagman. Lexington Books, 2020. 

Breastfeeding & Culture: Discourses and Representations; co-editor with Ann Marie Short and Dionne Irving. Demeter Press, 2018. 

Mothers, Mothering, and Globalization; co-editor with Dors铆a Silva-Smith and Laila Malik. Demeter Press, 2017.

Articles and Chapters

 鈥淎n ethics of maternal monstrosity.鈥 The Mother Wave: Matricentric Feminism as Theory, Activism, and Practice. Eds. Andrea O鈥橰eilly and Fiona Joy Green. Toronto: Demeter Press.  forthcoming.

鈥淭he Maternal Maleficent.鈥 Monstrous Mothers: Troubling Tropes. Eds. Abigail L. Palko and Andrea O鈥橰eilly. Toronto: Demeter Press, 2021.  85-103.

鈥淢onstrous Mothers.鈥 Maternal Theory: Essential Readings, second edition. Demeter Press, 2021. Invited contribution.

鈥淓mma Donoghue.鈥 Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literature. Wiley Blackwell, 2020. Invited contribution. 

鈥淭here is No Surviving Without Thriving.鈥 Feminist Responses to the Neoliberalization of the University: From Surviving to Thriving. Eds. Abby Palko, Sonalini Sapra, and Jamie Wagman. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2020.  

鈥(Breast)Milking the Situation: Other Mothering and Wet Nursing in Sherley Anne Williams鈥 Dessa Rose.鈥 Cultural Representations of Breastfeeding. Eds. Ann Marie Alfonso Short, Abigail L. Palko, and Dionne Bremyer. Toronto, Canada:  Demeter P, 2018. 

鈥淎bortion Politics in Edna O鈥橞rien鈥檚 Down by the River.鈥 Mothers, Mothering, and Globalization. Eds. Dors铆a Silva-Smith, Laila Malik, and Abigail L. Palko. Toronto: Demeter P, 2017. 163-82. 

鈥淓mma Donoghue, in conversation with Abby Palko.鈥 Gender, Sexuality and Intersectionality in Irish Studies. Special issue of Breac: A Digital Journal of Irish Studies. Eds. Moynagh Sullivan, Sinead Kennedy, and Abigail L. Palko. 6 (2016). http://breac.nd.edu/articles/emma-donoghue-in-conversation-with-abby-palko/ 

鈥淎 Triography of Polymaternity: Becoming Mamas to Triplets.鈥 On Mothering Multiples: Complexities and Possibilities. Ed. Kathy Mantas. Toronto: Demeter P, 2016. 86-103. 

鈥淨ueer Seductions of the Maternal in Dorothy Macardle鈥檚 Earth-bound.Irish University Review. 46.2 (November 2016): 287-308. 

鈥溾楴o mother nor nothing to me鈥: Excavating the Maternal Figure in Kissing the Witch.鈥 Irish women鈥檚 writing and experience. Special issue of Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Eds. Brian F. McCabe and Jaji H.C. Hammer. 44.7 (October-November 2015): 917-39. 

鈥淔inding a Daughter: Gis猫le Pineau鈥檚 L鈥檈sp茅rance macadam (Macadam Dreams).鈥 Reading/Speaking/Writing the Mother Text: Essays on Caribbean Women's Writing. Eds. Cristina Herrera and Paula Sanmart铆n. Toronto: Demeter P, 2015. 17-36.  

鈥淧atricia Hill Collins as Pedagogical Mother.鈥 Patricia Hill Collins: Reconceiving Motherhood. Ed. Kaila Adia Story. Toronto: Demeter P, 2014. 33-48. 

鈥淭riangulating Identity: The Afro-Irish Caribbean Act of Union in Testimony of an Irish Slave Girl.鈥 Where Motley is Worn: Transnational Irish Literatures. Ed. Amanda Tucker and Moira Casey. Cork: Cork UP, 2014. 65-82. 

鈥淐olonial Modernism鈥檚 Thwarted Maternity: Elizabeth Bowen鈥檚 The House in Paris and Jean Rhys鈥檚 Voyage in the Dark.鈥 Elizabeth Bowen and Textual Modernity. Special issue of Textual Practice. Eds. Pamela Thurschwell and Si芒n White. 27.1 (January 2013): 89-108. 

鈥淭aking Back the Streets, Helping Victims Heal: 鈥楳others In Charge鈥 in Philadelphia.鈥 The 21st Century Motherhood Movement: Mothers Speak Out on Why We Need to Change the World and How to Do It. Ed. Andrea O鈥橰eilly. Toronto: Demeter P, 2011. 538-46. 

&苍产蝉辫;鈥淔谤辞尘 The Uninvited to The Visitor:  Irish Women Respond to Independence.鈥 Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 31.2 (Fall 2010): 1-34. 

鈥淥ut of Home in the Kitchen: Maeve Brennan鈥檚 Herbert鈥檚 Retreat Stories.鈥 The New Hibernia Review 11.4 (Winter 2007): 73-91. 

Edited Journal Issue 

Co-editor and author of 鈥淚ntroduction鈥 with Moynagh Sullivan and Sin茅ad Kennedy. Breac, Issue 6: Gender, Sexuality and Intersectionality in Irish Studies. http://breac.nd.edu/articles/category/gender-sexuality-and-intersectionality/

  • Director, Maxine Platzer Lynn Women鈥檚 Center, University of Virginia, 2016-2023
  • Associate Director and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Gender Studies Program, University of Notre Dame, 2015-2016
  • Instructor, Johns Hopkins University鈥檚 Center for Talented Youth, 2001-2004 
  • Adjunct Instructor, Camden County College, Camden, NJ, 2003-2004    
  • Teacher, Chapin School, Princeton, NJ, 2000鈥2004
  • Teacher, Florence Township Middle School, Florence, NJ, 1996鈥2000