ABSTRACT

Philosophical inquiry into pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering is a growing area of interest to academic philosophers. This volume brings together a diverse group of philosophers to speak about topics in this reemerging area of philosophical inquiry, taking up new themes, such as maternal aesthetics, and pursuing old ones in new ways, such as investigating stepmothering as it might inform and ground an ethics of care. The theoretical foci of the book include feminist, existential, ethical, aesthetic, phenomenological, social and political theories. These perspectives are then employed to consider many dimensions of pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering, which are of central importance to human existence, but are only rarely discussed in philosophical cannons. Topics include pregnancy and embodiment, breast-feeding, representations – or the lack thereof – of pregnant and birthing women, adoption, and post-partum motherhood.

part |71 pages

Maternal Norms, Practices, and Insights

chapter |15 pages

Where Did I Go?

The Invisible Postpartum Mother

chapter |15 pages

Into the Mouths of Babes

The Moral Responsibility to Breastfeed

chapter |15 pages

Tales from the Tit

The Moral and Political Implications of Useless Lactational Suffering

part |71 pages

Maternal Roles and Relations

part |87 pages

Maternal Phenomena, Phenomenology, and Aesthetics

chapter |13 pages

The Pregnant Body as a Public Body

An Occasion for Community Care, Instrumental Coercion, and a Singular Collectivity

chapter |24 pages

Becoming Bovine

Phenomenology of Early Motherhood and Its Practical, Political Consequences

chapter |14 pages

The Sublimity of Gestating and Giving Birth

Toward a Feminist Conception of the Sublime