History of the Philosophy of Pregnancy

Our conference is motivated by the dearth of historical scholarship on the philosophy of pregnancy. Historical scholarship on reproduction tends to focus on the conception and development of the embryo  -- 'generation' and 'embryology' -- treating the developing organism as an independent entity. As a consequence, pregnancy is written out of the causal story. The goal of this conference is to recover a history of the philosophy of pregnancy and bring the work and challenges of the pregnant individual into focus.

The conference is accepting talk proposals for virtual presentations, but is not hosting virtual attendance for other participants.

Keynote Speaker: Sara Brill, Fairfield University

Other Speakers:

Main Session

1. Julia López García, “The Pregnant Woman as a Habitat of the Divine and Death”

2. Marjolein Oele, “My Other Self—My Mummified Placenta?”

3. Austin Heath, “Chilo and Childbirth: Oliva Sabuco de Nantes Barrera on the Mind and the (Pregnant) Body”

4. Amber Griffioen, “Forever Full, Eternally Empty: Meister Eckhart’s Pregnant God and the Spiritual Struggle of Miscarriage”

5. Kendra Anthony, “The Crossing: Spiritual Pregnancy Care for African Americans in the Early 20th Century”

6. Aanuoluwapo Fifebo Sunday, “Precarity, Care and Autonomy of the (Un)Reproductive Woman in Yoruba (African) Society: A Normative Analysis”

7. Jennifer Scuro, “Birth Privilege as White Privilege”

8. Verónica Kretschel & Mariana Smaldone, “Lucía Piossek Prebisch on Women and Philosophy: An Early Approach to a Phenomenology of Maternity”

9. Nicole Miglio, “That Body which is Autre Chose Qu’elle— Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty on Pregnancy and Alienation”

10. Beau Vroone, “A Critique of Nietzschean Reason: A Spivakian   Analysis of the Foreclosure of the Pregnant Subject Within The Gay Science”

11. Miranda Amey, “As Fertile as the Earth: Wetness and the Womb in Greco-Roman Mythology”

12. Lynda Gaudemard, “Mechanizing the Mind-body Union: Descartes’s Account of Birthmarks”

13. Megan Rawson, “What’s Sex Got to Do with It? How Historical Conceptions of Activity and Passivity in the Sex Act Affect Contemporary Metaphysical Understandings of Pregnancy”

14. Valeria Sonna, “Pregnancy and Motherhood as a Civic Duty in   Plato’s Political Thought”

15. María Elena García-Peláez Cruz, “Aristotle’s Insight on Pregnancy”

Auxiliary Session

1. Ewa Smuk-Stratenwerth, “Revolutionary Change in the Attitude   towards Childbirth in 1990s in Poland”

2. Sarah LaChance Adams, “Early 21st Century Philosophies of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Mothering”     

3. Christopher Oldfield, “When are Fosters Parts?”

4. Christopher ChoGlueck, “Success, Failure, and Progress with Pregnancy Labels: How Entrenched Values Have Shaped Pharmaceutical Science at the FDA”

5. Ernest Hook, “Evolution, Natural Selection and Human   Pregnancy”

6. Jennifer Fraser & Noah Stemeroff, “Extremely Nauseous: Motion Sickness, Morning Sickness, and the Gendered Boundaries of Human Ability”