My Books & Other Writing
When Joanna Wolfarth was pregnant with her first child, she assumed she would breastfeed, as her mother had fed her. Yet she was unprepared for the startling realities of new motherhood. Then, just four weeks after the birth, she found herself back in hospital with an underweight baby, bewildered by inconsistent advice and overcome with feelings of guilt and isolation.
Months later, her cultural historian's impulse led her to look to the past for guidance. What she discovered, neglected in the archives, amazed and reassured her. By piecing together cultural debris - from fragments of ancient baby bottles to eighteenth-century breast pumps, from the Palaeolithic Woman of Willendorf figurine to the poignantly inventive work of Louise Bourgeois and from mythical accounts of the creation of the Milky Way to advice found in Victorian medical manuals - Joanna began to understand how feeding our babies can be culturally, economically and physiologically determined as well as deeply personal and emotive.
Using the arc of her own experience, Joanna takes us on an intimate journey of discovery beyond mother and baby, asking how the world views caregivers, their bodies, their labour and their communal bonds. By bringing together art, social histories, philosophy, folk wisdom and contemporary interviews with women from across the world, Milk reveals how infant feeding has been represented and repressed, celebrated and censured. In doing so, Joanna charts previously unexplored territory of motherhood.
REVIEWS
'a brave writer....takes us on an illuminating tour of shifting attitudes and practices' - THE SUNDAY TIMES
'a love letter to all who have cradled an infant...the beauty of Wolfarth's story telling is hard to convey...it is a story for us all' - BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE
'it's a diverse affair, taking in everything from ancient icons of motherhood and Renaissance views of the sanctity of milk, to Victorian medical manuals and trips to the 21st-century maternity ward...' - BBC HISTORY REVEALED
‘ Compassionate, compelling and beautifully told, Milk is a fascinating journey through the social, cultural and historical meanings of breastfeeding. Through her intricate, personal and tender research, Wolfarth deftly explores the human complexities of caring, nurturing and nourishing. A sublime book.’- ELINOR CLEGHORN, author of UNWELL WOMEN
‘Erudite, intimate and compelling, Milk is a long-overdue history of humanity's first food.’ - LEAH HAZARD, author of WOMB
‘Sensitively drawn and full of insight, this is an intelligent and inventive new approach to a subject that should matter to all humans. Stunning.’ - JENNIE AGG, author of LIFE, ALMOST.
‘Milk is a fascinating book, a rigorous and intimate study of something at once essential to life, and yet too often overlooked. Wolfarth uses breastfeeding as a lens through which to examine and critique the structures of motherhood, but it's also a text suffused with love and care, and I felt equal parts enlightened and comforted after reading it.’ - MIRANDA WARD, author of ADRIFT
‘I adored Milk. It is such an open-hearted, tender, gorgeous book; the way Wolfarth writes of mothers and milk so carefully crafted and so caring in equal measure. Art and bodies are interwoven so beautifully it becomes a dance; one that pays tribute to our ancestors and our experience, both individual and collective. We are asked in myriad ways what exactly it means to give sustenance, to nurture, to give ourselves over to a small stranger we are changed by forever; no matter how we fed them. An important, non-judgmental and truly healing book; I am most grateful for it indeed.’ - Kerri ní Dochartaigh, author of THIN PLACES
MORE WRITING
Imprints
Winner of the Wild Muse Nature Writing Prize | December 2024
It is midnight. I’m at home, my forehead pressed deep into the rough nap of the sofa as another contraction swells up from my womb. My baby is coming.
It is also a late summer afternoon and I am climbing to the ruined fort. Ahead of me, over the cliff edge, I hear the roar of the open ocean. My baby is coming.
"Imprints" is available to read here
A Universe in My Hands
Unbroken | Winter 2024
As I usher him from the kitchen, I see a near-empty compost bag rise triumphantly from the lawn, where it languished for two weeks. Fingers pull at my belt loop and the staircase is covered in flakes of dried mud. When did I last clean the sink?
"A Universe in My Hands" is available to read here
Express Delivery
GOODWOOD Magazine | Autumn 2024
Breast milk, sometimes referred to as "liquid gold," has long been celebrated for its exceptional nutritional and medicinal properties. Until relatively recently human breast milk was thought to be sterile but we now know that it is full of bacteria. This microbiome also promotes a healthy gut microbiome, linked to better metabolic health and lower chances of obesity and diabetes. But it’s only now that researchers are looking into the precise composition and functions of these bacteria. ‘It is a perfect example of women's health being underfunded, under-researched, and overlooked’, says Dr Sioned Jones, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of BoobyBiome, a biotechnology start-up based at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health that aims to revolutionise infant feeding by focusing on the microbiome.
Express Delivery is available to read here
When I struggled with breastfeeding, ancient images of motherhood helped me feel less isolated
The Observer | 22 January 2023
Focusing on the most vital task of my life made me feel small and inconsequential in the world. It was visual art that offered me solace in that tumultuous first year of new motherhood.
Womb milk and the puzzle of the placenta
Wellcome Stories | 18 October 2023
Breast or formula milk is essential to the existence of a newborn baby – but it’s less well known that even as an embryo they’re dependent on a type of milk. Historian Joanna Wolfarth explores ancient beliefs about the role of the placenta, as well as recent research on uterine nourishment.
The History of Breast Milk in Art
Hyperallergic | 10 August 2023
Milk is not only humanity’s food but also a liquid dripping with symbolism, from spiritual salvation to maternal devotion.
Feeding Futures
Corridor8 | 24 October 2022
These fraught practical negotiations of space, public perception and a hungry baby happened in parallel with coming to terms with an ever-changing postpartum body, my new identity within the world, and a host of unexpected emotions.
In the Shadow of Angkor
History Today | 2 February 2022
The ruined temples of Cambodia’s medieval empire became symbols of a people who had forgotten their history. In reality, they demonstrate an inherent continuity.
Confusion, guilt, and the battle to breastfeed
Wellcome Stories | 19 February 2020
Weeks of worry, pain and confusing input from an array of health professionals accompanied Joanna Wolfarth’s struggle to breastfeed her baby. She gradually discovered evidence going back millennia that indicated her problems were not new ones.
The Angkor Empire’s National Health Service
History Today | 14 May 2020
After decades of turmoil, in 1181 Jayavarman VII restored order to the Angkor Empire by embracing Buddhism and introducing an unprecedented public healthcare programme.
Uncanny Encounters at Angkor
Alpine Fellowship – Academic Writing Prize Runner-Up | 2021
I cannot pretend to be immune to the romantic allure of the ruin. My decision to pursue research on Angkor was sparked by a moment of uncanny fascination, where any sense of academic objectivity was overcome by an embodied response to what lay before me. I remember it with distinct clarity.