Introduction: Th e Philosophical Significance of Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Mothering

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents ix
3. Foreword xi
4. Acknowledgments xv
5. Introduction: Th e Philosophical Significance of Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Mothering 1
6. PART I : THE PHILOSOPHICAL CANON
7. 1 Plato, Maternity, and Power: Can We Get a Different Midwife? 29
8. 2 Of Courage Born: Reflections on Childbirth and Manly Courage 47
9. 3 Original Habitation: Pregnant Flesh as Absolute Hospitality 71
10. 4 The Birth of Sexual Difference: A Feminist Response to Merleau- Ponty 88
11. PART II: ETHICS
12. 5 Birthing Responsibility: A Phenomenological Perspective on the Moral Significance of Birth 107
13. 6 Birthmothers and Maternal Identity: The Terms of Relinquishment 120
14. 7 What’s an Adoptive Mother to Do? When Your Child’s Desires Are a Problem 138
15. PART III: POLITICS
16. 8 The Pro- Choice Pro- Lifer: Battling the False Dichoto 169
17. 9 The Political “Nature” of Pregnancy and Childbirth 193
18. 10 Disempowered Women? The Midwifery Model and Medical Intervention 215
19. PART IV: POPULAR CULTURE
20. 11 Knock Me Up, Knock Me Down: Images of Pregnancy in Hollywood Film and Popular Culture 239
21. 12 Exposing the Breast: The Animal and the Abject in American Attitudes Toward Breastfeeding 263
22. PART V: FEMINIST PHENOMENOLOGY
23. 13 The Order of Life: How Phenomenologies of Pregnancy Revise and Reject Theories of the Subject 281
24. 14 The Vision of the Artist/Mother: The Strange Creativity of Painting and Pregnancy 300
25. Notes 321
26. Bibliography 371
27. Contributors 393
28. Index 397