Notes on Mother Tongues

"Lebanese writer and editor Mirene Arsanios meditates on the relationships between mother tongues, motherhood, and colonialism. In this pamphlet, she investigates the historical and personal circumstances that led to the loss of her "native" language. Written as a fictional essay, Notes on Mother Tongues explores language as a field shaped by diasporic histories, class relations, and broken familial legacies. It strives to imagine mother tongues and motherhood beyond the labor of reproduction--languages that exist in troubled ecosystems where lack does not preclude repair. This pamphlet is part of UDP's 2020 Pamphlet Series: twenty commissioned essays on collective work, translation, performance, pedagogy, poetics, and small press publishing. The pamphlets are available for individual purchase and as a subscription. Each offers a different approach to the pamphlet as a form of working in the present, an engagement at once sustained and ephemeral."--Publisher's website, viewed July 8, 2021.