The Childless Woman as Failure; or, the “Spinster Aunt” as Provocation for the Future

One of the great strengths of Women in German as an organization is that it creates a space within academic and political work for personal experience, for one’s experiences as scholar, colleague, student, teacher, friend, and son or daughter. It was my daughterly perspective that I brought to my scholarship on Julia Franck and motherhood, including the motherhood/demography debate from 2008. My mother died at the beginning of my graduate studies, and my research was inspired, at least in part, by the desire to give voice to her subjectivity (a desire repeatedly frustrated, as I found that I only have my words to tell her story).