BOOKCLUB // Motherhood Between Theory & Fiction

Both. The reading group operates in hybrid form to maximise accessibility and participation. Participants are welcome to join: in person, online, or move flexibly between both formats month to month Hybrid access is part of our wider commitment to reducing barriers to collective thought & community.

The in-person venue is currently located on the second floor and unfortunately does not have lift access. We recognise this creates a significant accessibility barrier for some participants and we want to be transparent about this limitation. Because accessibility matters deeply to The Madre Project

No. Attendees do not need to have purchased or fully read the texts in order to participate. Contextual summaries, key themes, excerpts, and guiding questions will be provided to help participants engage meaningfully regardless of reading capacity or access to materials.

Each month we pair: one fiction text with one non-fiction/theoretical text The aim is to explore how literature and critical theory speak to one another — allowing participants to think through complex ideas emotionally, politically, philosophically, and collectively.

Anyone interested in critically engaging with motherhood, care, reproduction, identity, labour, technology, kinship, feminism, philosophy, politics, literature, & culture. You do not need to identify as a mother or parent to attend. The space is intentionally inclusive.

Sessions are led and facilitated by Sandy Oldaker (@themotherresearcher), a philosophy researcher and artist working across motherhood studies, biopolitics, feminist theory, reproductive politics, and autoethnographic practice.

kinship and family structures, queer and trans reproductivity, capitalism and domestic labour, maternal affect and embodiment, medicalisation and biopolitics, futurity and speculative motherhood.

No. We require all attendees to book via Eventbrite so we can ensure we have prepared adequately for you. Because the group operates in hybrid form and discussion is facilitated in an intentional and supportive way, spaces are limited.

BOOKCLUB // motherhood between theory & fiction

The Madre Project hosts a new monthly hybrid critical reading group exploring motherhood, reproduction, care, labour and identity through dual reading.

Each session pairs fiction with critical theory, philosophy, memoir, or cultural criticism — creating space to think collectively about the maternal beyond sentimentality and stereotype.

Led and facilitated by @themotherresearcher; Sandy is founder of The Madre Project & a lecturer in philosophy at The University of Chichester, where she is researching a PhD on the biopolitics of motherhood.

In our first session we will read The Mother Code by Carole Stivers alongside The Xenofeminist Manifesto by Laboria Cubonix. This dual reading encourages us to blur the boundaries of discourse. What is fiction? What is theory? Which texts contain authority? Why?

Each book club meeting is open to all & is hybrid - both in person and online. Breaking down barriers to gathering is at the heart of The Madre Project mission. At checkout please select in-person or online, should care responsibilities or circumstance change, you are welcome to attend online using the link provided ahead of the event.