Coordinator of The Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program & Professor
thompsmx@jmu.edu
Contact Info
Office: Keezell 413
Fall 2024 Office Hours:
MW 11:00am - 12:30pm and by appointment
Coordinator, The Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program
Specialization:
Contemporary American Literature, Women's Literature, Feminist Theory, Body Studies, Motherhood Studies, and Reproductive Justice
Education:
Ph.D., American Culture Studies, Bowling Green State University
M.A., English, University of Vermont
B.A., French and English, University of Vermont
Publications
Edited Volume
The Politics of Reproduction: Adoption, Abortion, and Surrogacy in the Age of Neoliberalism. Co-edited with Modhumita Roy. Formations: Adoption, Kinship, and Culture Series. Ohio State University Press. Forthcoming October 2019.
Refereed Articles
“Impossible Motherhood: Irene Vilar’s Misconceived Metaphors.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies 35.1 (2014): 132-59.
“Learn Something From This! The Problem of Optional Ethnicity in America’s Next Top Model.” Feminist Media Studies 10:3 (Sept. 2010): 335-52.
“Third Wave Feminism and The Politics of Motherhood.” Genders 43 (Spring 2006). Reprinted with new introduction as “Third Wave Feminism and The Politics of Motherhood” Genders 1:2 (2016). https://www.colorado.edu/genders/2017/03/17/third-wave-feminism-and-politics-motherhood. Web.
Refereed Book Chapters
“Bad Mothers and Staunch Feminists: Selective Abortion in Mommy-Memoirs by Ayelet Waldman and Martha Beck.” Mothering and Abortion. Eds. H. Jackson and K. Kosior. Toronto, ON: Demeter Press. (forthcoming 2019)
“Precarity and Disasters in Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones: A Reproductive Justice Reading” in The Politics of Reproduction: Adoption, Abortion, and Surrogacy in the Age of Neoliberalism. 37-61. (forthcoming 2019)
“Introduction” (co-authored with Modhumita Roy). The Politics of Reproduction: Adoption, Abortion, and Surrogacy in the Age of Neoliberalism. 1-36. (forthcoming 2019)
“Believing is Seeing is Believing: Elective Abortion and Visual Closure.” Interrogating Reproductive Loss: Feminist Writings on Abortion, Miscarriage, and Stillbirth. Eds. Emily R.M. Lind & Angie Deveau. Toronto, ON: Demeter Press, 2017. 61-74.
“When Chickens Come Home to Signify in Our Mothers’ Gardens: The Walkers, Mommy-Memoirs, and the New Maternalism.” New Maternalisms: Tales of Motherwork (Dislodging the Unthinkable). Eds. Roksana Badruddoja and Maki Motapanyane. Toronto, ON: Demeter Press, 2016. 180-195.
“Juno or Just Another Girl? Young Breeders and a New Century of Racial Politics of Motherhood.” In Motherhood at the 21st Century: Policy, Experience, Identity, Agency. Ed. Andrea O’Reilly. NY: Columbia University Press, 2010. 171-84.
“The Construction of Public Health in the FDA Hearings on Silicone Breast Implants.” In Body Talk: Rhetoric, Technology, and Reproduction. Eds. Clare Gavon, L. Gurak, M. Lay, and C. Mynti. Chicago: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000. 262-76.
Shorter Works
“The Mommy Memoir.” The Microgenre: A Quick Look at Small Culture. Eds. Molly O’Donnell and Anne Stevens. New York: Bloomsbury. (forthcoming 2019)
“The Round House” and “Grandma.” Entries in Women’s Rights: Reflections in Popular Culture. Ed. Ann M. Savage. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Publishing, 2017.
Commissioned Review of Mothers Who Deliver: Feminist Interventions in Public and Personal Discourse. Edited by Jocelyn Fenton Stitt and Pegeen Reichert Powell. Teachers College Record, Date Published: June 15, 2011. http://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 16449.
“Mothers in Media.” Encyclopedia of Motherhood. Ed. Andrea O’Reilly. Sage Press, 2010. 2:746-50.
“What is a Feminist (Blog)?” Feminist Collections: A Quarterly of Women’s Studies Resources. 27(2) Winter 2006.
“Janice Radway” and “Joanna Russ.” Entries in Encyclopedia of Feminist Literary Theory. Ed. Beth Kowaleski-Wallace. New York: Garland, 1997. 335 and 357.