Story Time with Lucy Jones

Sat 19 Oct 2024

The Shed Kirkstall The Shed Kirkstall
10 Weaver Street
Leeds
LS4 2AU

Free

Booking information

About the event

Forming one of the events of (M)OTHER Exhibition by Ellie Andrews, we are very excited to host author and journalist Lucy Jones for a reading from her groundbreaking book, Matrescence.

Join us for an hour of reading, Q&A’s, a look around the exhibition, tea, coffee and biscuits, and some time with other like minded women.

For all mothers.

You can find information about Lucy and her publications at www.lucyfjones.com

Instagram: @lucyfjones

About Matrescence:

A radical new examination of the transition into motherhood and how it affects the mind, brain and body

During pregnancy, childbirth, and early motherhood, women undergo a far-reaching physiological, psychological and social metamorphosis.

There is no other time in a human’s life course that entails such dramatic change-other than adolescence. And yet this life-altering transition has been sorely neglected by science, medicine and philosophy. Its seismic effects go largely unrepresented across literature and the arts. Speaking about motherhood as anything other than a pastel-hued dream remains, for the most part, taboo.

In this ground-breaking, deeply personal investigation, acclaimed journalist and author Lucy Jones brings to light the emerging concept of ‘matrescence’. Drawing on new research across various fields – neuroscience and evolutionary biology; psychoanalysis and existential therapy; sociology, economics and ecology – Jones shows how the changes in the maternal mind, brain and body are far more profound, wild and enduring than we have been led to believe. She reveals the dangerous consequences of our neglect of the maternal experience and interrogates the patriarchal and capitalist systems that have created the untenable situation mothers face today.

Here is an urgent examination of the modern institution of motherhood, which seeks to unshackle all parents from oppressive social norms. As it deepens our understanding of matrescence, it raises vital questions about motherhood and femininity; interdependence and individual identity; as well as about our relationships with each other and the living world.