New Feminist Perspectives on Embodiment

Clara Fischer is an EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Centre for Gender, Feminisms, and Sexualities, and Co-director of the John Dewey Research Project at University College Dublin, Ireland.Luna Dolezal is a Lecturer in Medical Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Exeter, UK.

• 1. Contested Terrains: New Feminist Perspectives on Embodiment – Clara Fischer and Luna Dolezal.- 2. A Genealogy of Women’s (Un)Ethical Bodies – Gail Weiss.- 3. The Normal Body: Female Bodies in Changing Contexts of Normalization and Optimization – Julia Jensen and Maren Wehrle.- 4. How Do We Respond? Embodied Vulnerability and Forms of Responsiveness – Danielle Petherbridge.- 5. Revisiting Feminist Matters in the Post-Linguistic Turn: John Dewey, New Materialisms, and Contemporary Feminist Thought – Clara Fischer.- 6. Feminist and Transgender Tensions: An Inquiry into History, Methodological Paradigms and Embodiment – Lanei M. Rodemeyer.- 7. Expressing the World: Merleau-Ponty and Feminist Debates on Nature/Culture – Kathleen Lennon.- 8. Are Women’s Lives (Fully) Grievable? Gendered Framing and Sexual Violence – Dianna Taylor.-9. Sex Trafficking, Reproductive Rights, and Sovereign Borders: A Transnational Struggle Over Women’s Bodies – Diana Tietjens Meyers.- 10. Routine Unrecognized Sexual Violence in India – Namrata Mitra.-11. Performing Pregnant: An Aesthetic Investigation of Pregnancy – EL Putnam.- 12. The Metaphors of Commercial Surrogacy: Rethinking the Materiality of Hospitality Through Pregnant Embodiment – Luna Dolezal.

“This collection contains a number of insightful essays, some of which are suitable for inclusion in undergraduate feminist philosophy courses and may be of interest to scholars researching related topics. Each essay reveals different ways that ‘women's embodiment still constitutes contested terrain.’” (Erinn Gilson, Hypatia Reviews Online, hypatiareviews.org, April, 2020)“Reading this collection of chapters is a rewarding and moving experience; the latter a signal that what is being addressed here is about relationship and shared (and differing) humanity and suffering. … what we are dealing with here is a critical and sincere discussion (not the pursuit of mastery); a collective pursuit of both making visible and making a difference, pushing against the tide of crass right-wing and neoliberal ‘rationality’ and rabid patriarchy that so taints our current world.” (Clifford van Ommen, Feminism & Psychology, January 23, 2020)