Alice H. Deakins (Ph.D., Columbia University) teaches in the English Department at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey. Her areas of research include gender and language, pedagogical grammar, and mothers and daughters in literature. She has served as president of the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender (OSCLG) and the International Linguistic Association (ILA).
Rebecca Bryant Lockridge (Ph.D., Ohio State University) teaches in the Communication and Media Studies Department and Women and Gender Studies Program at the University of Southern Maine. Her research interests include the epistemology of visual communication, rhetoric of gender, and feminism and film. She is affiliated with Maine Women's Studies Consortium, American Association of University Women, and National Women's Studies Association.
Helen M. Sterk (Ph.D., University of Iowa) heads the Department of Communication at Western Kentucky University. She is widely published in rhetoric and women's studies. Her most recent book is Gender, Culture and Physicality: Paradoxes and Taboos (Lexington Books, 2009).

Nationally and internationally known feminist scholars frame, analyze, and explore mother-daughter bonds in this collection of essays. Cultures from around the world are mined for insights which reveal historical, generational, ethnic, political, religious, and social class differences.

Acknowledgements
Foreword
Brinlee Kramer with Cheris Kramarae and Jana Kramer
Introduction
Helen M. Sterk and Alice H. Deakins
SECTION I:
THE TENACITY OF CONNECTION
Chapter One: Birthing: Daughters' Transitions to Motherhood
Helen M. Sterk and Rita L. Feikema
Chapter Two: Reconnections for Life Enhancement: Daughters After Mother Loss
Deborah A. O'Neil and Susan Schick Case
Chapter Three: Embodying Resistance, Enforcing Obedience: Mother-Daughter Relationships in Recent Indo-Anglian Fiction
Rajender Kaur
Chapter Four: Mothers and Daughters: Glimpses Through Time
Alice H. Deakins
SECTION II:
IMPEDIMENTS TO CONNECTION
Chapter Five: Two of Me: Mothers and Daughters in Connection
Michelle Miller-Day
Chapter Six: Mother Care/Daughter Care: The Bridge That Is My Back
Rebecca Bryant Lockridge and Sarah Lockridge
Chapter Seven: The 80hoo Generation: Rethinking Their Mother-Daughter Relationships During Childhood in China
Xue Yongling with Mei Zhong
Chapter Eight: Voices from the Andes: Jaqi Mothers and Daughters
M. J. Hardman and Shumaya Martha Bautista Hardman
SECTION III:
CREATING AND MAINTAINING CONNECTIONS
Chapter Nine: On the Transition from Childhood to Womanhood: Constructing Coming of Age Rituals in U.S. American Culture
Deborah S. Ballard-Reisch, Alyssa C. Ballard-Reisch, and Jackie Silviera-Sater
Chapter Ten: "Pecked to Death by Ducks": Managing Dialectal Tensions in the Mother-Adolescent Daughter Relationship
Barbara Penington
Chapter Eleven: Negotiation of Attachment/Separation Tension in Relationships Between Mothers and Daughters Who Are Pursuing Careers in Academia
Marjorie A. Jaasma, Frances Jeffries, and Keith Nainby
Chapter Twelve: An Untold Story: Mothers' and Daughters' Connections through Food
Miriam Meyers
Chapter Thirteen: Constructing the Grandmother-Granddaughter Relationship through Communication: A Review of the Relevant Literature
Lynn H. Turner
SECTION IV:
MOTHER-DAUGHTER CONNECTIONS AROUND THE WORLD
Chapter Fourteen: Mothers and Daughters in the Global Village
Alice H. Deakins
Works Cited
Author Biographies
Index