Reproductive Acts
Sexual Politics in North American Fiction and Film
(McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013)
ART 208
Forty years after Roe v. Wade, it is evident that the ideologies of “choices” and “rights,” which have publicly framed reproductive politics in North America since the landmark legal decision, have been inadequate in making sense of the topic’s complexities. In Reproductive Acts, Heather Latimer investigates what contemporary fiction and film can tell us about the divisive nature of these politics, and demonstrates how fictional representations of reproduction allow for readings of reproductive politics that are critical of the terms of the debate itself.
In an innovative argument about the power of fiction to engage and shape politics, Latimer analyzes works by authors such as Margaret Atwood, Kathy Acker, Toni Morrison, Larissa Lai, and director Alfonso Cuarón, among others, to claim that the unease surrounding reproduction, particularly the abortion debate, has increased both inside and outside the US over the last forty years. Fictional representation, Latimer argues, reveals reproductive politics to be deeply connected to cultural anxieties about gender, race, citizenship, and sexuality – anxieties that cannot be contained under the rules of individual rights or choices.
Striking a balance between fictional, historical, and political analysis, Reproductive Acts makes a compelling argument for the vital role narrative plays in how we make sense of North American reproductive politics.
(Description Source: McGill-Queen’s University Press)
Author
Heather Latimer is an assistant professor in Gender and Women’s Studies at UBC Okanagan, on Syilx Okanagan territory, where she teaches undergraduate classes on reproductive politics, feminist epistemologies, and critical sexuality studies. She also supervises graduate students interested in reproduction, health humanities, fiction and film, or science and technology studies. She received a PhD in English from Simon Fraser University.
In general, her research aims to understand and explain the history of reproductive politics by studying representations of reproduction, mostly in science fiction and film.
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Paper ISBN: 9780773541580
Cloth ISBN: 9780773541573
eBook ISBN: 9780773588899
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