<div dir="ltr"><div><div id="gmail-:q0" class="gmail-Am gmail-aiL gmail-Al editable gmail-LW-avf gmail-tS-tW gmail-tS-tY" aria-label="Message Body" role="textbox" aria-multiline="true" style="direction:ltr;min-height:266px" tabindex="1" aria-controls=":14b" aria-expanded="false"><div>Dear all,</div><div><br></div><div>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 (<span class="gmail-tribe-address"><span class="gmail-tribe-street-address">1119 8th Ave). Our discussion will focus on her new book, <i>Mother Media: Hot and Cool Parenting in the Twentieth Century</i>. Details here: </span></span><a href="https://townhallseattle.org/event/hannah-zeavin/">https://townhallseattle.org/event/hannah-zeavin/</a> and description below!</div><div><br></div><div><h1 class="gmail-tribe-events-single-event-title">Hannah Zeavin <span style="font-weight:normal">with Mal Ahern</span></h1>
<p class="gmail-text_after_title"><font size="4"><b>Techno-Parenting: How Technology Shapes Motherhood and Family Life</b></font></p><div class="gmail-dl-group">
<dt class="gmail-tribe-events-start-date-label"> Date: </dt>
<dd>
<abbr class="gmail-tribe-events-abbr gmail-tribe-events-start-date gmail-published gmail-dtstart" title="2025-05-13"> Tuesday, May 13 </abbr>
</dd>
</div>
<dt class="gmail-tribe-events-start-time-label"> Time: </dt><dd>
<div class="gmail-tribe-events-abbr gmail-tribe-events-start-time gmail-published gmail-dtstart" title="2025-05-13">
7:30 pm <span class="gmail-tribe-events-abbr gmail-tribe-events-time-zone gmail-published">PDT (Doors at 6:30)</span>
</div>
</dd><dt class="gmail-tribe-events-event-cost-label"> Cost: </dt><dd class="gmail-tribe-events-event-cost"> $10 – $35 Sliding Scale (<a href="https://ticketing.townhallseattle.org/events/0195f750-2566-9796-0916-3908a9b8f7f2">get tickets here</a>)</dd></div><div><br></div><div><p>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.</p>
<p>Zeavin, author of <em>Mother Media: Hot and Cool Parenting in the Twentieth Century</em>,
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.</p>
<div class="evnt-accordion">
<div class="evnt-inside gmail-visible"><p>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.</p>
<p><strong>Hannah Zeavin</strong> 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 <em>The Distance Cure</em> (MIT Press) and Founding Editor of <em>Parapraxis</em>. In 2021, she cofounded The Psychosocial Foundation.</p>
<p><strong>Mal Ahern</strong> 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 <em>diacritics, Discourse,</em> and <em>World Picture,</em> and she is currently writing a book on automation and bad copies.</p></div></div><br></div><div><br></div><div><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr">Mal Ahern (she/her/hers)<div>Assistant Professor</div><div>Cinema & Media Studies</div><div>University of Washington</div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br clear="all"></div><br><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr">Mal Ahern (she/her/hers)<div>Assistant Professor</div><div>Cinema & Media Studies</div><div>University of Washington</div></div></div></div></div></div>