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The Slave, The Fetus, The Body: Articulating Biopower And The Pregnant Woman, Kevin Kuswa, Paul Achter, Elizabeth Lauzon
The Slave, The Fetus, The Body: Articulating Biopower And The Pregnant Woman, Kevin Kuswa, Paul Achter, Elizabeth Lauzon
Rhetoric and Communication Studies Faculty Publications
Many slaveholders attempted to justify the institution of slavery in the United States by claiming that the practice of slavery was actually in the interests of the slaves themselves. Not only are these arguments invalid because they justify inhumane treatment and the imprisonment of innocent human beings, they also contain a dangerous paternalism (a “speaking for”) that has not vacated the social sphere. Indeed, this same logic—the notion that bodies can be regulated and controlled for their own protection—is presently being used to speak for the fetus in order to justify fetal rights. Borrowing from Berlant (1997), these fetal rights …
Family Model And Mystical Body: Witnessing Gender Through Political Metaphor In The Early Modern Nation-State, Allison Anna Tait
Family Model And Mystical Body: Witnessing Gender Through Political Metaphor In The Early Modern Nation-State, Allison Anna Tait
Law Faculty Publications
The preferred political metaphor in the constitutionalist context was the mystical political body, a concept that defined a system in which power was shared and the well-being of the community was linked to the well-being of the individual. Within the mystical political body, the theoretical possibility exists for women not only to occupy a civic space through organic (and organological) association but also to articulate their perspective and its consequences for the political community in a civically approved way. In the mystical body, women approach a citizenship status impossible within the traditional family framework and their witnessing is closely associated …