Mamapalooza: A Mother's Day Celebration of Motherhood and Moms in Toronto

Motherhood culture is thriving in Toronto. Here are just two of the latest examples. Mamapalooza is taking place this weekend and Demeter Press has an anthology about motherhood and hip hop culture in the works.

MAMAPALOOZA: CELEBRATE MOTHERHOOD AND MOTHERS

Mamapalooza is back. The annual Mother's Day celebration of everything mom is organized by the Association for Research in Mothering's Mother Outlaws.

This year's event, which will feature music, art, poetry, and more, is being held at the Bread and Circus Theatre in Kensington Market (299 Augusta Street) tomorrow from 1 pm to 5 pm.

You can find out more by downloading a copy of the flyer (.pdf).

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: MOTHERING AND HIP HOP CULTURE

Speaking of the Association for Research in Mothering (ARM), some of you might be interested in contributing to Demeter Press' upcoming anthology about Mothering and Hip Hop Culture. Here's a brief excerpt from the call for submissions. (You can download a full copy of the call for submissions here.)

Motherhood is an experience that has been ever‑present yet invisible in the global music genre of Hip-Hop. Yet this aspect of women’s experiences within the movement has garnered little or no interest from journalists, writers and scholars of Hip-Hop culture. Nor do we have any understanding of how mothers who remain Hip-Hop enthusiasts negotiate their relationship to the culture of Hip‑Hop and its music with their children. What are the spaces that motherhood occupies in Hip-Hop? Are there ways of understanding mothering in Hip-Hop along a historical continuum? What are some of the ways that motherhood complicates the very masculinist discourses around hip hop? How can we create an empowered and feminist Hip-Hop mothering, what would it look like and how would it challenge the status quo? How are mothers engaging with Hip-Hop, both locally and globally?

Abstracts are due August 1, 2009. Full papers are due January 7, 2010. You can find out more about Demeter Press and the titles it has published to date by visiting the Demeter Press section of the ARM website. The ARM website notes that Demeter Press is named in honor of "the Goddess Demeter, herstory’s most celebrated empowered and outraged mother."