The Biopolitics Of Embryos And Alphabets

Download or read book The Biopolitics of Embryos and Alphabets written by Ruth Austin Miller and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades there has been an explosion in work in the social and physical sciences describing the similarities between human and nonhuman as well as human and non-animal thinking. In this work, Ruth Miller argues that these types of phenomena are also useful models for thinking about the growth, reproduction, and spread of political thought and democratic processes. By shifting her level of analysis from the politics of self-determining subjects to the realm of material environments and information systems, Miller asks what might happen if these alternative, nonhuman thought processes become the normative thought processes of democratic engagement.

Download or read book What Is Sexual Difference? written by Mary C. Rawlinson and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2023-06-06 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Luce Irigaray has written that “sexual difference is one of the major philosophical issues, if not the issue, of our age.” Spanning metaphysics, phenomenology, and psychoanalysis, her work examines how sexual difference structures being and subjectivity, organizes our experience of the world, and affects the images and discourses involved in knowledge production and practical action. No other philosopher has paid such careful attention to the consequences of the elision of sexual difference in philosophical thought. However, at a time when notions of sexual and gender difference are hotly contested, Irigaray’s thought has often been dismissed as essentialist or reductively binary. This book brings together leading scholars to consider the philosophical implications of Irigaray’s writing on sexual difference, particularly for issues of gender and race. Their essays directly confront the charge of essentialism, exploring how Irigaray’s thought opens new possibilities for understanding the complexity of gender identities, including nonbinary and trans experiences as well as alternative configurations of masculinity and femininity. Though Irigaray is sometimes accused of a failure to appreciate racial difference, contributors show the productive role of her work in thinking race. This book also illuminates how Irigaray’s work provides creative practices that help realign human experience and our relations with nature and each other.

Download or read book Animate Literacies written by Nathan Snaza and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-16 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Animate Literacies Nathan Snaza proposes a new theory of literature and literacy in which he outlines how literacy is both constitutive of the social and used as a means to define the human. Weaving new materialism with feminist, queer, and decolonial thought, Snaza theorizes literacy as a contact zone in which humans, nonhuman animals, and nonvital objects such as chairs and paper all become active participants. In readings of classic literature by Kate Chopin, Frederick Douglass, James Joyce, Toni Morrison, Mary Shelley, and others, Snaza emphasizes the key roles that affect and sensory experiences play in literacy. Snaza upends common conceptions of literacy and its relation to print media, showing instead how such understandings reinforce dehumanizations linked to dominant imperialist, heterosexist, and capitalist definitions of the human. The path toward disrupting such exclusionary, humanist frameworks, Snaza contends, lies in formulating alternative practices of literacy and literary study that escape disciplined knowledge production.

Download or read book Socially Undocumented written by Amy Reed-Sandoval and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it really mean to be "undocumented," particularly in the contemporary United States? Political philosophers, immigration policy makers, and others have tended to define the term "undocumented migrant" legalistically-that is, in terms of lacking legal authorization to live and work in one's current country of residence. In Socially Undocumented, Reed-Sandoval challenges this "legalistic understanding" by arguing that being socially undocumented is to possess a real, visible, and embodied social identity that does not always track one's legal status. She further argues that achieving immigration justice in the U.S. (and elsewhere) requires a philosophical understanding of the racialized, class-based, and gendered components of socially undocumented identity and oppression. Socially Undocumented offers a new vision of immigration justice by integrating a descriptive and phenomenological account of socially undocumented identity with a normative and political account of how the oppression with which it is associated ought to be dealt with as a matter of social justice. It also addresses concrete ethical challenges such as the question of whether open borders are morally required, the militarization of the Mexico-U.S. border, the perilous journey that many migrants undertake to get to the United States, the difficult experiences of the women who cross U.S. borders seeking prenatal care while pregnant, and more.

Download or read book Animacies written by Mel Y. Chen and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-10 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rethinks the criteria governing agency and receptivity, health and toxicity, productivity and stillness

Download or read book Tactical Biopolitics written by Beatriz Da Costa and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2010-08-13 with total page 535 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientists, scholars, and artists consider the political significance of recent advances in the biological sciences. Popular culture in this “biological century” seems to feed on proliferating fears, anxieties, and hopes around the life sciences at a time when such basic concepts as scientific truth, race and gender identity, and the human itself are destabilized in the public eye. Tactical Biopolitics suggests that the political challenges at the intersection of life, science, and art are best addressed through a combination of artistic intervention, critical theorizing, and reflective practices. Transcending disciplinary boundaries, contributions to this volume focus on the political significance of recent advances in the biological sciences and explore the possibility of public participation in scientific discourse, drawing on research and practice in art, biology, critical theory, anthropology, and cultural studies. After framing the subject in terms of both biology and art, Tactical Biopolitics discusses such topics as race and genetics (with contributions from leading biologists Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins); feminist bioscience; the politics of scientific expertise; bioart and the public sphere (with an essay by artist Claire Pentecost); activism and public health (with an essay by Treatment Action Group co-founder Mark Harrington); biosecurity after 9/11 (with essays by artists' collective Critical Art Ensemble and anthropologist Paul Rabinow); and human-animal interaction (with a framing essay by cultural theorist Donna Haraway). Contributors Gaymon Bennett, Larry Carbone, Karen Cardozo, Gary Cass, Beatriz da Costa, Oron Catts, Gabriella Coleman, Critical Art Ensemble, Gwen D'Arcangelis, Troy Duster, Donna Haraway, Mark Harrington, Jens Hauser, Kathy High, Fatimah Jackson, Gwyneth Jones, Jonathan King, Richard Levins, Richard Lewontin, Rachel Mayeri, Sherie McDonald, Claire Pentecost, Kavita Philip, Paul Rabinow, Banu Subramanian, subRosa, Abha Sur, Samir Sur, Jacqueline Stevens, Eugene Thacker, Paul Vanouse, Ionat Zurr

Download or read book Foucault's Futures written by Penelope Deutscher and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-04 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Foucault's Futures, Penelope Deutscher reconsiders the role of procreation in Foucault's thought, especially its proximity to risk, mortality, and death. She brings together his work on sexuality and biopolitics to challenge our understanding of the politicization of reproduction. By analyzing Foucault's contribution to the politics of maternity and its influence on the work of thinkers such as Roberto Esposito, Giorgio Agamben, and Judith Butler, Deutscher provides new insights into the conflicted political status of reproductive conduct and what it means for feminism and critical theory.