Salt Babies: Narrating Maternity in Russian and Comparative Literature

盐婴儿：斯拉夫和比较文学中的母性叙事是一个计划中的研究网络，它将把活跃在母性研究领域的斯拉夫研究学者与更广泛的学科领域联系起来。通过在立陶宛和英国举行的两次学术会议和三次公开研讨会，在一系列相关活动和出版物的补充下，我们将询问对母亲经验和行为的公认理解，同时重新开启关于当代文学和文化如何反映母性的对话。作为首席研究员和共同研究员分享斯拉夫文学专业知识，文学和电影文化是我们研究问题的主要焦点；此外，这种方法使我们的网络能够解决斯拉夫研究中母亲研究的长期边缘化问题。我们的标题“盐婴儿”来自俄罗斯作家伊萨克·巴别尔1926年的短篇小说《盐》，故事发生在俄罗斯内战期间，讲述了一个女人假装喂奶婴儿，说服哥萨克士兵让她乘坐他们的火车。因为他们尊敬哺乳的母亲，士兵们让她不受干扰地旅行；但当她异常平静的“宝宝”被发现是一袋走私的盐时，他们把她扔出火车，射杀了她。我们的标题也参考了安妮·范恩（Anne Fine）颇具影响力的儿童小说《面粉婴儿》（1992），在这本小说中，一群捣乱的男孩在两周的时间里，通过培育一袋袋面粉来学习良好的父母行为。这两个故事都表明，在各自的背景下，“良好的”、养育性的母性行为在文化上是如何被尊崇的；但是，通过证明母性行为可以伪造，它们暴露了我们对母性理想的脆弱性和流动性。这激发了网络的关键问题：1。前苏联国家和西方国家对母性的文化（主要但不完全是文学）表述有何不同？公众对母性的看法有何不同？母性研究，尤其是母性小说的研究方法在斯拉夫研究和其他学科领域有何不同？我们如何有效地利用翻译的母性小说，让更广泛的公众参与到对母性经历的反思中来？在共同研究者的机构（立陶宛维尔纽斯大学）举行的为期两天的学术研讨会将调查我们领域的现状，将来自不同学科的斯拉夫研究学者——社会学、历史学、文学——联合在由非斯拉夫母亲研究学者主持的小组中，这些学者随后将担任网络斯拉夫研究人员的导师，并作为我们产出的内部审稿人。斯拉夫主义者和更广泛的母性研究领域的主要学者之间建立的联系将刺激斯拉夫母性研究领域的跨学科知识交流，我们将通过以下方式传播：(1)德文郡和埃克塞特研究所（DEI，埃克塞特）的后续研讨会，网络成员将展示和讨论新的研究；(2)同行评审期刊《母性研究》的斯拉夫写作专刊，该杂志将发表这项研究。最后是一本编辑过的书。因此，“盐婴儿”巩固和扩展了以前由人权理事会资助的欧洲母亲网络的工作。三个主题公开研讨会，挑战围绕母乳喂养的主流沉默文化；(2)婴儿丢失；(3)收养和抚养，计划在东英吉利大学诺里奇分校进行；埃克塞特以前的妇产医院（Poltimore House）；和帕萨卡电影院（立陶宛维尔纽斯）。每次讨论会将与有关的斯拉夫文学/电影文本联系起来；我们将邀请作者/导演、学者和家长支持组织的代表带领观众讨论。我们还将策划两场关于母亲经历的公开展览（在埃克塞特大学举办的一场关于职业母亲的摄影研究，以及在DEI举办的关于德文郡历史产妇规定的展览）。

Salt Babies: Narrating Maternity in Slavic and Comparative Literature is a planned research network which will connect Slavic Studies scholars, active in Maternal Studies, with wider disciplinary fields. Through two academic conferences and three public seminars held over nine months in Lithuania and the UK, complemented by a range of related events and publications, we shall interrogate received understandings of maternal experience and behaviour, while re-opening dialogue about how contemporary literatures and cultures reflect motherhood. As the Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator share expertise in Slavic literature, literary and cinematic culture are the main foci of our research questions; additionally, this approach enables our network to address the long-term marginalization of Maternal Studies within Slavic Studies. Our title "Salt Babies" derives from Russian author Isaak Babel's 1926 short story "Salt", an account (set during the Russian Civil War) of a woman who persuades Cossack soldiers to let her ride their train by pretending to nurse an infant. As they venerate nursing mothers, the soldiers let her travel unmolested; but when her unnaturally peaceful "baby" is exposed as a sack of smuggled salt, they fling her off the train and shoot her. Our title also references Anne Fine's influential children's novel "Flour Babies" (1992), in which a class of disruptive boys learn to model good parental practice by nurturing bags of flour for two weeks. Both stories show how "good", nurturing maternal behaviour is culturally enshrined in their respective contexts; but, by also demonstrating that maternal behaviour can be faked, they expose the vulnerability and fluidity of our ideals of motherhood. This inspires the network's key questions:1. How do cultural (primarily, but not exclusively, literary) representations of motherhood differ between former Soviet nations and the West? How does the public perception of motherhood differ?2. How do methodological approaches to Maternal Studies, especially to maternal fictions, differ between Slavic Studies and other disciplinary fields?3. How can we use translated maternal fictions effectively to engage the wider public in reflection on maternal experience?The opening two-day academic symposium at the Co-Investigator's institution (Vilnius University, Lithuania), will survey the state of our field, uniting Slavic Studies scholars from different disciplines - sociology, history, literature - in panels chaired by established non-Slavist Maternal Studies scholars, who will later act as mentors for the network's Slavist researchers and as internal reviewers for our outputs. Connections created between Slavists and leading scholars in the wider field of Maternal Studies will stimulate interdisciplinary knowledge exchange within Slavic Maternal Studies, which we will disseminate through (1) a follow-up workshop at the Devon and Exeter Institution (DEI, Exeter) where network members will present and discuss new research and (2) a special Slavic writing-focused issue of the peer-reviewed journal "Studies in the Maternal" which will publish this research, and ultimately an edited volume. "Salt Babies" thus consolidates and extends the work of previous AHRC-funded networks on European motherhood.Three themed public seminars, challenging the prevailing culture of silence around (1) breastfeeding; (2) infant loss; (3) adoption and fostering, are planned for UEA, Norwich; Exeter's former maternity hospital (Poltimore House); and Pasaka Cinema (Vilnius, Lithuania), respectively. Each seminar will link to a relevant Slavic literary/cinematic text; we will invite authors/directors, scholars, and representatives from parental support organizations to lead audience discussion. We will also curate two public exhibitions on maternal experience (a photographic study of working motherhood at Exeter University, and a display about Devon's historical maternity provision at the DEI).