192 pages

English

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Copula , livre ebook

State University of New York Press - Robyn Ferrell

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192 pages

English

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How will the ability to manipulate human reproduction change our social world and the relationship between the sexes? Taking an explicitly interdisciplinary approach to gender and reproductive technology, Robyn Ferrell examines this question in the light of feminist theories of sexual equality and sexual difference, arguing that technology itself can be seen as a kind of reproduction. Invoking a concept of reproduction that understands it as generic, Ferrell asserts that in any reproduction, something is produced of a kind that was there before and yet that is also new. Technology is therefore generically reproductive, since it produces new matter of the same kind. In addition to key figures in French feminism, Ferrell draws from psychoanalysis and contemporary continental thinkers ranging from Heidegger to Haraway.

Preface
Acknowledgments

1. The Maternal in Its Natural Habitat

2. Brave New World

3. Reproducing Technology

4. Conceiving of Feminism

5. Feminism Is a Kind of Time

6. The Lore of the Father

7. The Figure of the Copula

8. The Body as Material Event

9. The Technology of Genre

Bibliography
Index

Sujets

Philosophy

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Publié par	State University of New York Press
Date de parution	01 février 2012
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9780791481776
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1598€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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copula sexual technologies, reproductive powers

robyn ferrell

Copula

SUNY series in Gender Theory Tina Chanter, editor

Copula

Sexual Technologies, Reproductive Powers

Robyn Ferrell

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press, 194 Washington Avenue, Suite 305, Suite 700, Albany, NY 122102384

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Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Ferrell, Robyn, 1960– Copula : sexual technologies, reproductive powers / Robyn Ferrell. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0791467538 (hardcover : alk. paper)—ISBN 0791467546 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Sex role–Philosophy. 2. Feminist theory. 3. Motherhood—Philosophy. I. Title.

HQ1075.F474 2006 306.874'3'01–dc22

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2005020543

For my mother, Pat For my son, David

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Contents c

Prefaceix

Acknowledgmentsxiii

ONE: The Maternal in Its Natural Habitat1

TWO: Brave New World21

THREE: Reproducing Technology37

FOUR: Conceiving of Feminism49

FIVE: Feminism Is a Kind of Time65

SIX: The Lore of the Father85

SEVEN: The Figure of the Copula105

EIGHT: The Body as Material Event129

NINE: The Technology of Genre145

Bibliography163

Index of Names173

vii

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Preface c

he advent of feminism in an intellectual history of the twentieth T century is not surprising, but on the contrary can be taken too much for granted. Consider the advent of feminism at the same time as the explosion of technology; feminism at the same time as the rear rangement of the family and the means of reproduction; feminism at the same time as an inclusive political rationality—democracy—grows in company with a mass consumerism that is desiring to the point of violence. Feminism is a product as much as an agent of these times. Feminism is kin to technology. This book endeavors to show this through reflection on the reproductive technologies, among other things. Technology produces change, sometimes dramatic change, in the material world and its innovation can be seen to exceed the thought that engendered it. I argue that this is not only a property of technol ogy but indeed ofany reproduction. The concept of reproduction, like that of technology, involves a paradox. In reproduction, something is produced of a kind that was there before and yet that is also new; reproduction must produce that which is “the same, only different” (Lacy 2000). The paradox arising in the concept of technology is most eloquently put by Heidegger: “[T]he essence of technology is by no means anything technological” (1977, 287). Technology, while being the most material of events—indeed it is definitive of materialism—is first and foremost a “way of thinking.” The logic of paradox is an important contributor to the strange ness engendered by the reproductive technologies. In examining the context in which this strangeness arises, this study encounters some central convictions about the nature of human life and love, convic tions governed by the paradox of the relations between oneself and