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E-book Rethinking the Public Fetus : Historical Perspectives on the Visual Culture of Pregnancy

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Penilaian

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Today, images of fetuses and pregnant bodies are ubiquitous. We encoun-ter them everywhere—from ultrasound pictures of expected babies in family albums to childbirth scenes in reality television shows or on social media platforms. Images of fetal bodies are also frequently seen in antiabortion campaigns. The capacity of fetal photographs and ultrasound images to both stir up strong emotions and be interpreted as scientific truth has long made them one of the most effective tools of persuasion for antiabortion activists. Yet, while their pervasive presence in today’s visual culture is of course con-nected to the expanding media landscape and contemporary struggles over reproductive rights, visualizations of pregnancy and fetuses have a much lon-ger and more varied history.An important aim of this volume is to counteract the conception of fetal images as depictions of a universal truth about pregnancy in contempo-rary culture and reproductive politics. In abortion debates, these powerful images are often used as evidence of the “personhood” of the fetus, even though they—as all images—must be understood as representations. That is, they show certain things, leave out others, and are created from specific per-spectives, with certain technologies, and with particular audiences in mind. Moreover, embryos and fetuses have not always been associated with abor-tion. Indeed, the connection between fetuses and abortion is not natural or inevitable but rather the product of a specific cultural and social situation in time and space.1 Consequently, in order to deepen the understanding of the power of fetal images in visual culture, and sharpen the critical analysis of today’s antiabortion campaigns, we find it essential to further unpack and denaturalize “embryos” and “fetuses” as historical constructs. It is therefore timely to revisit the influential concept of the “public fetus.” This was a term that feminist scholars—most notably political scien-tist Rosalind Petchesky and historian Barbara Duden—started to use in the late 1980s and 1990s to describe the growing dissemination of fetal images in the public domain. In these scholars’ works, the breakthrough for the public fetus was often connected to Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson’s pictures of human embryos and fetuses published in Life magazine and the book Ett barn blir till (A Child Is Born) in the mid-1960s as well as to the increasing use of the obstetric ultrasound. This development, it was argued, threatened to undermine women’s reproductive rights, as the way the fetus was represented in these images constructed it as an autonomous person, separated from its mother, that could be claimed to have a “right to life.” Since then, many have analyzed the consequences of this change and how images of fetal bodies have been used in antiabortion campaigns, especially in the US context.2The present book seeks to revitalize this scholarly discussion by exploring the emergence of the public fetus from an interdisciplinary and longue duréeperspective. In recent decades, historians have demonstrated that visualiza-tions of pregnancy and fetuses for broader audiences can indeed be found much earlier than the 1960s and that the assertion of novelty in discussions on the public fetus thus needs to be qualified.3 Moreover, much previous research has been focused on the United States, while other cultural contexts have been less explored. Therefore, this volume brings together international scholars from several disciplines, including history, anthropology, and film studies, to explore visualizations of pregnant and fetal bodies across different geographical and national contexts, from the eighteenth century to the pres-ent. We approach the public fetus as a flexible analytical concept rather than a historical object with a fixed meaning. The key is to analyze how fetuses and other reproductive phenomena have been materialized, mediated, and used in public settings for many purposes and by various actors over time. In addition, we draw on the notion of visual culture rather than, for example, the media, in order to include a wide range of representations. Hence, the chapters harness a wealth of fascinating and previously unknown or under-used empirical materials, including wet specimen preparations, papier-mâche? models of the pregnant uterus, obstetrical machines, films on childbirth, menstruation art, and Lennart Nilsson’s early photographs of the living fetus in utero.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

902 BJO r

Penerbit

USA : Boydell & Brewer., 2024

Deskripsi Fisik

355 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9781805431404

Klasifikasi

902

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

-

Subjek

Miscellany of History

Info Detail Spesifik

-

Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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