Maria Novotny
Hello! My name is Maria Novotny. I have a PhD in Writing & Rhetoric from Michigan State where I did doctoral work on "rhetorics of infertility". Much of my research is community-engaged by working with infertility and reproductive loss patients who turn to art as a method to cope, process, and ultimately heal from their invisible pains.
No about information.
Interests
I am an Associate Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Drawing on a reproductive justice framework, I write about reproductive advocacy, infertility, and recurrent reproductive loss. My co-edited collection Infertilities, A Curation portrays the ranging experiences of infertility in art and writing. My scholarship has been published in several editing collections and journals including: Community Literacy Journal, Computers and Composition, Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics, Peitho, Reflections, Rhetoric Review, and Rhetoric of Health & Medicine. Today, I am co-editing a collection titled Doing Reproductive Justice: Stories of Failure, Resilience, and Hope from the Ground, which is under review with Ohio State UP. In the fall of 2026, I will be co-curating a three-month long public exhibition titled In a State of IF. This exhibit highlights contemporary practices that challenge cultural, medical, and legal narratives surrounding fertility, reproduction, and family, offering more nuanced and humane alternatives to traditional depictions of motherhood.
