The Gift of the Other: Levinas and the Politics of ReproductionThe Gift of the Other brings together a philosophical analysis of time, embodiment, and ethical responsibility with a feminist critique of the way women s reproductive capacity has been theorized and represented in Western culture. Author Lisa Guenther develops the ethical and temporal implications of understanding birth as the gift of the Other, a gift which makes existence possible, and already orients this existence toward a radical responsibility for Others. Through an engagement with the work of Levinas, Beauvoir, Arendt, Irigaray, and Kristeva, the author outlines an ethics of maternity based on the givenness of existence and a feminist politics of motherhood which critiques the exploitation of maternal generosity. |
Contents
The Facts of Life Beauvoirs Account of Reproduction | 15 |
BIRTH AS A PROJECT | 19 |
BIRTH AS AN AMBIGUOUS SITUATION | 24 |
The Body Politic Arendt on Time Natality and Reproduction | 29 |
LABOR WORK ACTION | 32 |
PROMISE AND FORGIVENESS | 36 |
THINKING THROUGH NATALITY | 41 |
CAVAREROS READING OF ARENDT | 44 |
IRIGARAY READING LEVINAS | 84 |
ISAIAH 49 | 89 |
Ethics and the Maternal Body Levinas and Kristeva Between the Generations | 95 |
TIME AND THE MATERNAL BODY | 97 |
ETHICS AND HERETHICS | 108 |
NUMBERS 1112 | 129 |
Maternal Ethics Feminist Politics The Question of Reproductive Choice | 141 |
DRUCILLA CORNELL | 143 |
Welcome the Stranger Birth as the Gift of the Feminine Other | 49 |
DERRIDA AND THE GIFT OF THE IMPOSSIBLE | 50 |
CIXOUS AND THE GIFT OF THE FEMININE | 53 |
LEVINAS AND THE GIFT OF HOSPITALITY | 57 |
FROM ETHOS TO OIKOS | 58 |
FROM OIKOS TO ETHOS | 64 |
Fathers and Daughters Levinas Irigaray and the Transformation of Paternity | 75 |
PATERNITY AS INFINITE DISCONTINUITY | 77 |
LEVINAS BETWEEN ETHICS AND POLITICS | 147 |
ETHICS POLITICS AND THE PROSPECT OF UNBORN MOTHERS | 155 |
ALTERED MATERNITIES | 161 |
Notes | 165 |
| 179 | |
| 187 | |
Other editions - View all
The Gift of the Other: Levinas and the Politics of Reproduction Lisa Guenther No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
abortion action Alphonso Lingis already alterity ambiguity anarchic Arendt argue autonomous Beauvoir become biological born capacity Cavarero chapter child Cixous command Cornell Derrida discontinuous disrupts dwelling economy embodied emerge Emmanuel Levinas engenders ethical responsibility Ethics of Ambiguity exile existence father fecundity female feminine feminism feminist fetus flesh freedom future generosity gestation gift of birth give birth given hospitality human identity individual infinite responsibility interpretation Irigaray Isaiah 49 justice Kristeva labor language latent birth Levinas calls Levinas writes Levinas's Levinas's account loss masculine maternal bearing maternal body matricide means melancholia merely Moses motherhood Nachmanides natality never Numbers one's oneself Otherwise pain passivity past persecution possession possible pregnancy present pro-life proximity question radical refers relation remains representation Second Sex semiotic sense Shekhinah social Stabat Mater stranger substitution suggests temporality tion Totality and Infinity Trans transcendence transubstantiation unborn mothers virile women Zion