Newberry Seminar: Cara Burnidge

This is an online event based at the Newberry in Chicago and scheduled to take place at 3:00 p.m. Central, 4:00 p.m. Eastern. Registration is required for online participation. More information and registration is available at newberry.org.

“Divine Queen Mother: Elizabeth Cady Stanton Mothering White Feminism”

Cara Burnidge, University of Northern Iowa

As one chapter in a religious biography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Divine Queen Mother” examines this woman’s rights activist’s parenting practices. Previous scholars present Stanton’s motherhood as she did, believing childcare existed in tension with her feminism: that raising children tethered women to the “domestic sphere” and restricted their participation in public life. Alongside these conventional narrations, this chapter considers the ways in which motherhood complicated Stanton’s relationship to American Christianity. Drawing upon recent works from Kathryn Lofton, Judith Weisenfeld, Kyla Schuller, and Sara Farris, this chapter seeks to show how experiences of motherhood placed Stanton’s skepticism of Christianity in tension with her religio-racial embodiment of being a good mother.

This seminar is free, but all participants must register in advance.

Learn more and register

About the Religion and Culture in the Americas Seminar Series

The Religion and Culture in the Americas Seminar explores topics in religion and culture including social history, biography, cultural studies, visual and material culture, urban studies, and the history of ideas. We are interested in how religious belief has affected society, rather than creedal or theological focused studies.

The Seminar’s organizers for 2023–24 are Christopher Allison (Dominican University), Christopher Cantwell (Loyola University Chicago), Darren Dochuk (University of Notre Dame), Karen Johnson (Wheaton College), David Lantigua (University of Notre Dame) Malachy McCarthy (Claretian Missionaries Archives), and Kevin Schultz (University of Illinois Chicago). The Religion and Culture in the Americas Seminar is co-sponsored by the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame, the McGreal Center at Dominican University, the History Department at Loyola University, the University of Chicago Divinity School, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Wheaton College.

Event description content was originally published at newberry.org.