I’m looking for a chair and a respondent for a proposed special session for the 2011 MLA entitled “Controlling Birth: The Politics of Pregnancy in American Culture.” If you are planning on attending MLA next year and would be interested in serving as panel chair or respondent for this session, please respond off list to ginnyengholm@gmail.com. I would be happy to give you further information about the panel. Below is the panel’s call for papers.
Best,
Ginny Engholm
Doctoral Candidate
English Department
University of Kentucky
Controlling Birth: The Politics of Pregnancy in American Culture–Proposed Special Session (2011 MLA)
The term “birth control” typically refers to the various technological and behavioral mechanisms intimate couples use to prevent or limit progeny. This panel seeks papers that broaden this term to encompass the myriad ways that society engages in controlling birth. Despite the prevalent view of reproduction as an intensely intimate and personal decision, how and when couples have been able to limit or prevent reproduction have been greatly influenced by larger political concerns–debates over women’s roles in society, sexual agency, and sexual desire; eugenically-motivated historical narratives of “excess” reproduction and “race suicide;” and conflicts within the scientific and biomedical discourses of the body, pregnancy, childbirth and the professionalization of obstetrics.