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Full-Text Articles in Critical and Cultural Studies

Rhetoric Of Surrogacy: Re-Considering Agency Through Embodied Performance, Ann Kitalong-Will Jan 2022

Rhetoric Of Surrogacy: Re-Considering Agency Through Embodied Performance, Ann Kitalong-Will

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Surrogacy as a medical practice goes back, in a practical sense, to 1988, when the court case, “In the Matter of Baby M, A Pseudonym for an Actual Person,” was tried in the Supreme Court of New Jersey. At the heart of the issue, was the question of who Baby M’s legally-recognized mother was in the relationship between the contracting parents and the woman who gestated and gave birth to Baby M. Using this case as a jumping off point, this dissertation traces a history of surrogacy as a global industry. This project explores rhetorical agency in the embodied performance …


Intimate Rhetorics Of Networked Motherhood, Katie Nelson Mar 2021

Intimate Rhetorics Of Networked Motherhood, Katie Nelson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Fundamentally pregnant bodies are understood, similarly to women’s bodies, as necessitating discipline. However, new networked forums have emerged where pregnancy is understood as affirming and having the capacity to challenge a silenced subject position. Using three case studies, the #IHadAMiscarriage Instagram page, the #TakeBackPostpartum Instagram page, and mediatized discourses surrounding Kylie Jenner’s pregnancy, this dissertation writes intimate publicity into these mediatized transgressions of pregnancy and postpartum. I argue discourses about pregnancy and postpartum in these networked spaces constitute intimate publics through the cultivation of shared affected investments and divestments in embodied experiences. These investments in the embodied experiences are crafted …