Philosophical Inquiries into Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Mothering: Maternal Subjects (Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy)

"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."--Publisher's website Philosophical Inquiries into Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Mothering Maternal Subjects 6 Copyright 7 Contents 10 List of Figures 14 Acknowledgments 16 Introduction 18 PART I Maternal Norms, Practices, and Insights 36 1 Sara Ruddick, Transracial Adoption, and the Goals of Maternal Practice 38 2 Where Did I Go? The Invisible Postpartum Mother 51 3 Into the Mouths of Babes: The Moral Responsibility to Breastfeed 66 4 Tales from the Tit: The Moral and Political Implications of Useless Lactational Suffering 81 5 Motherhood and the Workings of Disgust 96 PART II Maternal Roles and Relations 108 6 The Practical and Theoretical Challenges of Mothering with Disabilities: A Feminist Standpoint Analysis 110 7 Mothers, Children with Disability, and Postmodern Sainthood 124 8 Psychoanalytic Feminism and the Dynamics of Mothering a Daughter 143 9 Why Don’t Philosophers Tell Their Mothers’ Stories? Philosophy, Motherhood, and Imaginative Resistance 155 10 On Stepmothers as Hybrid Beings and World Travelers: Towards a New Model for Care-full Ethics 168 PART III Maternal Phenomena, Phenomenology, and Aesthetics 180 11 Creating Life, Giving Birth, and Learning to Die 182 12 The Pregnant Body as a Public Body: An Occasion for Community Care, Instrumental Coercion, and a Singular Collectivity 195 13 Becoming Bovine: A Phenomenology of Early Motherhood, and Its Practical, Political Consequences 208 14 The Aesthetics of Childbirth 232 15 The Sublimity of Gestating and Giving Birth: Toward a Feminist Conception of the Sublime 254 Contributors 268 Index 274 Maternal Subjects Using feminist, existential, ethical, aesthetic, phenomenological, social and political theories, the contributors to this book consider topics including pregnancy and embodiment, breast-feeding, representations – or the lack thereof – of pregnant and birthing women, adoption, and post-partum motherhood.