Angela Ashurst-McGee
I completed an honors thesis entitled “Great with Child: Pregnancy Narratives by Mormon Women.” Richard Duerden of the English Department advised the thesis. Neal Kramer, William Wilson, and Doris Dant also gave feedback and assistance. I interviewed eight women and transcribed and edited seven interviews, which totaled more than 100 pages. As an introduction to the narratives, I wrote a 25-page theoretical study entitled, “Mormonism, Feminism, and Pregnancy.”
The project has changed considerably since I first conceived the idea and made the proposal last fall. As I studied literary critical theories such as feminism, New Historicism, and folklore, and as I identified existing publications on pregnancy, I decided that what pregnancy theory lacked most were the stories of women. Hundreds of volumes have been written on the clinical and physical aspects of pregnancy, and several dozen studies have analyzed pregnancy in literature. I wanted my project to uncover and recognize the experience, perceptions, and narratives of the women who experience pregnancy. I wanted to give the women a forum to vocalize their experiences and form them into narratives, then I wanted to move those narratives from cloistered gossip and girl-talk to formal academia where they could be more widely accepted, read, and discussed.
The grant helped me spend necessary time on the project and pay for printing and photocopying. Attempting a project of this scope not only taught me about pregnancy theory, but also about the technicalities, methods, and procedures of navigating a large research project. The HELL and the BYU Folklore Archives hold copies of the project. BYU Studies is considering the introduction for publication.