I am incredibly proud and excited to announce that Syracuse University in Florence will be hosting MIRCI's annual conference for 2018, on May 2-4.

MIRCI (the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement) is an association based out of Toronto, Canada and led by Andrea O'Reilly, the globally recognized mother of motherhood studies. As I've mentioned before, reading a casual reference to her in a magazine back in 2008 kind of changed my life. The idea that feminism and motherhood could go together rocked my world, and I wasn't even a mother yet.

The discovery inspired my eventual foray into the blogging world with Maple Leaf Mamma (this blog's former incarnation whose posts are now archived here). That in turn led me to start researching and writing academically on ways Italian women and maternal feminism intersect, presenting at conferences and getting published in MIRCI's journal (more on this in future posts, I promise!!).

What I love about MIRCI is its incredibly inclusive approach to the field, warmly inviting not just scholars from a wide variety of disciplines but also bloggers, artists, poets and other non-academics to contribute to its conferences and publications.

So I warmly encourage any of you with even minimal curiosity about this topic to consider applying to present at the 2018 MIRCI conference in Florence, especially if you live in Italy!

The deadline for abstracts is fast approaching: November 1, 2017. Please find the call for papers with details on how to apply here and don't hesitate to contact me (form at bottom of this page) if you have any questions.

Please share widely!