[Ssnet_list] Tuesday, 5/13: Hannah Zeavin on Techno-Parenting, with Mal Ahern

[Mal Ahern via Ssnet_list]

Dear all,

Hannah Zeavin (Assistant Professor, History of Psychiatry, UC-Berkeley) and
I will be doing an event called "Techno-Parenting: How Technology Shapes
Motherhood and Family Life" at the Medhi Reading Room in Town Hall (1119
8th Ave). Our discussion will focus on her new book, *Mother Media: Hot and
Cool Parenting in the Twentieth Century*. Details here:
https://townhallseattle.org/event/hannah-zeavin/ and description below!

Hannah Zeavin with Mal Ahern

*Techno-Parenting: How Technology Shapes Motherhood and Family Life*
Date: Tuesday, May 13
Time:
7:30 pm PDT (Doors at 6:30)
Cost: $10 – $35 Sliding Scale (get tickets here
<https://ticketing.townhallseattle.org/events/0195f750-2566-9796-0916-3908a9b8f7f2>
)

The first baby monitor, dubbed “The Radio Nurse,” was released in 1937.
This new technology completely changed parenting, bringing peace of mind to
the stress of caring for children. One might say it technologized
parenting. Just like the advancements in baby monitors since then,
techno-parenting has grown quite complex. To understand it, Hannah Zeavin,
a professor and leading historian of psychology, examines this twentieth
century phenomenon.

Zeavin, author of *Mother Media: Hot and Cool Parenting in the Twentieth
Century*, tells the story of our understanding of what a mother is and how
“bad” mothering formed our contemporary panics about “bad” media. She
highlights the pediatric, psychological, educational, industrial, and
economic norms that technology has created around mothering. From the
nursery to the prison, from the clinic to the commune, she charts the
crisis of the family across the twentieth century and the attempts to
remediate the mother through technology and screens.

Zeavin lays bare the incongruity of techno-parenting, pointing to things
like “maternal fitness,” medical redlining, and surveillance of children,
parents, and other caregivers. She’s come to a simple contradiction:
technology is seen as harmful in domestic and educational spaces, while it
is also a saving grace, like the baby monitor, in the unending labor of
raising a family.

*Hannah Zeavin* is an Assistant Professor of the History of Science in the
Department of History and the Berkeley Center for New Media at UC Berkeley.
She is the author of *The Distance Cure* (MIT Press) and Founding Editor of
*Parapraxis*. In 2021, she cofounded The Psychosocial Foundation.

*Mal Ahern* is an assistant professor of Cinema & Media Studies at the
University of Washington, specializing in media technology and visual
culture. Her research explores the intersection of media theory, mass
production, and artistic labor, with a focus on how errors and automation
shape culture. Ahern’s work has appeared in *diacritics, Discourse,* and *World
Picture,* and she is currently writing a book on automation and bad copies.


-- 
Mal Ahern (she/her/hers)
Assistant Professor
Cinema & Media Studies
University of Washington


-- 
Mal Ahern (she/her/hers)
Assistant Professor
Cinema & Media Studies
University of Washington
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