Symbolic Patterns of Childbirth

ISBN-13: 9783039104321 / Angielski / Miękka / 2016 / 284 str.

Anja Hansch

Opis

This study investigates long-lasting cultural constructions of childbirth. Four symbolic patterns of childbirth emerge from the analysis of a variety of texts ranging from myths, philosophy, literature and religion to ethics of modern medicine. On a symbolic level -The Supremacy of the Male- attributes the coming into existence of a child primarily to male -pro-creation.- -The Supremacy of the Female-, contrarily, relates childbirth to conception, pregnancy and giving birth on part of the woman. -Theoretical, Spiritual and Political Natality versus Childbirth- pictures childbirth as lower in value as the realms of ideas, religion, the political or the arts. In contrast to this, -Harmony between Spiritual/Theoretical Natality and Childbirth- shows that spiritual birth and childbirth can also be intertwined. It is argued that different symbolic patterns of childbirth may imply different gender relations and different views on -life- in general. The theoretical part of the book is based on Hannah Arendt s philosophy of natality and on Martin Heidegger whose ideas on death are used for a philosophical conception of the woman giving birth."

Spis treści

Contents: Childbirth as Symbolic Patterns, Experience and Performance - A Conception of Childbirth - Symbolic Patterns of Childbirth -
The Supremacy of the Male - Theoretical, Spiritual and Political Natality versus Childbirth - The Supremacy of the Female - Harmony between Spiritual/Theoretical Natality and Childbirth - Final Remarks: A Baby Has Been Born - So What?

O autorze

Anja Hänsch earned her Ph.D. in Social Sciences from the European University Institute, Florence. She has published on a wide range of topics in cultural studies, gender studies and comparative literature such as body theory, emigration and modernity in Arab and Franco-Arab literature, Orientalist masculinity, the Aladdin fairy-tale in the 1001 Nights and the conception of goddesses by scholars of the 20th century.