ABIGAIL L. PALKO, PH.D.

My research and writing focuses on cultural and literary representations of mothering practices. I have a particular interest in the ways that rhetoric about motherhood shapes and influences women's mothering practices.

My book, Imagining Motherhood in Contemporary Irish and Caribbean Literature (2016, Palgrave Macmillan) analyzes Irish and Caribbean women writers' negotiations of new understandings of the figure of the Good Mother.

I am the co-editor of:

Monstrous Mothers: Troubling Tropes, with Andrea O'Reilly (Demeter Press, 2021)
Feminist Responses to the Neoliberalization of the University: From Surviving to Thriving, with Sonalini Sapra and Jamie Wagman (Lexington Books, 2020)
Cultural Representations of Breastfeeding, with Ann Marie Short and Dionne Bremyer (Demeter Press, 2018)
Mothers, Mothering and Globalization, with Dorsía Silva Smith and Laila Malik (Demeter Press, 2017)

My work has appeared in a number of journals and Demeter Press publications, and I serve on the Steering Committee of IAMAS (the International Association of Maternal Action and Scholarship).

I am the Director of the Maxine Platzer Lynn Women's Center at the University of Virginia. We offer an array of programming and services to support the development of strong women leaders and those who work beside them. These include leadership opportunities through our internship and community mentoring programs, as well as mental health services and wellness support for students, faculty and staff, and the community.

I earned my Ph.D. in Literature (with a focus on Irish and Caribbean novels) with a graduate minor in Gender Studies from the University of Notre Dame in May 2010.

photo credit: Sarah Cramer Shields