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The Mother Load: Motherhood, Trauma and Resilience

When

Event Status

This conversation originally scheduled to take place on Monday 2 August will now be released as a podcast only. This is in response to current health advice and restrictions on interstate travel.  While it is unfortunate that we can’t present this conversation in person we invite you to subscribe to the Wheeler Centre podcast to hear this conversation.

Ticket bookers will be contacted shortly.


What happens when trauma intersects with motherhood – and how do mothers and children find the strength to endure, survive and thrive? 

 In her memoir The Mother Wound, artist, lawyer and advocate Amani Haydar tells the heartbreaking story of her mother’s death through a brutal act of violence perpetrated by her father. Award-winning writer Alice Pung’s latest novel, One Hundred Days, examines the faultlines of love and control in a complex mother-daughter relationship.

Both women are mothers themselves, and write with nuance and compassion about the intersections and complexities of culture, class, and family. In this Broadly Speaking event, Haydar and Pung will discuss the extraordinary resilience mothers and children demonstrate in the face of trauma with host Susan Carland.

Content warning: This event includes discussion of family violence and other topics audience members may find confronting.

The bookseller for this event is Neighbourhood Books.

 The Broadly Speaking series is proudly supported by Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and family and the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund

Featuring

Alice Pung

Alice Pung OAM is the author of the bestselling memoirs Unpolished Gem and Her Father’s Daughter, and the essay collection Close to Home, as well as the editor of the anthologies Growing Up Asian in Australia and My First Lesson. Her debut novel Laurinda won the Ethel Turner Prize at the 2016 NSW ... Read more

Amani Haydar

Amani Haydar is an award-winning artist, lawyer, mum and advocate for women’s health and safety based in Western Sydney. In 2018 Amani’s self-portrait titled Insert Headline Here was a finalist in the Archibald Prize. Since then, her writing and illustrations have been published in Arab, Austral... Read more

Susan Carland

Dr Susan Carland is an academic, author, and social commentator. She has a PhD from Monash University, and is a Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA) Fellow and a Churchill fellow, researching the intersection between gender, Islamophobia, and social cohesion. Susan hosted the television qui... Read more

Location

The Wheeler Centre

176 Little Lonsdale Street Melbourne Victoria 3000

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