Cover; Contents; Introduction: Race, Death, and the Maternal in American Visual Culture; 1. Maternal Visions, Racial Seeing: Theories of the Photographic in Barthes's Camera Lucida; 2. Commemorating Whiteness: The Ghost of Diana in the U.S. Popular Press; 3. Beloved Therapies: Oprah and the Hollywood Production of Maternal Horror; 4. Prodigal (Non)Citizens: Teen Pregnancy and Public Health at the Border; 5. Breeding Patriotism: The Widows of 9/11 and the Prime- time Wombs of National Memory; Conclusion: Vivid Defacements; Acknowledgments; Notes; Index
Summary
In "American Pietas," Ruby C. Tapia reveals how visual representations of racialized motherhood shape and reflect national citizenship. By means of a sustained engagement with Roland Barthes's suturing of race, death, and the maternal in "Camera Lucida," Tapia contends that the contradictory essence of the photograph is both as a signifier of death and a guarantor of resurrection. Tapia explores the implications of this argument for racialized productions of death and the maternal in the context of specific cultural moments: the commemoration of Princess Diana in U.S. magaz
