Latest Posts

• IVF as Folklore: How Poetry Can Reclaim Maternal Selfhood 10/04/2013
  by Laura Seymour Leaflets and other official sources of information about IVF refer to it largely in biological and medical terms: the surgery, the laboratory, the ‘procedure’. But the ways in which men and women introspect IVF do not tend to take this purified medical form, where the body, or the self, is seen as a totally surgical, medical entity. Though o […]
• Beyond the Biological: How ARTs are Re-defining the ‘Maternal’ Relationship 19/02/2013
    by Katie Hammond In employing the term ‘maternal’ we are often referring to a ‘maternal instinct, ‘bond’ or ‘relationship’ – this last being my intended use. A quick Internet search reveals the maternal relationship to be a bond between a mother and her child. The relationship is typically thought to be continuous in its development, with its foundation be […]
• Fictional Pregnancies Before and After the Test 06/12/2012
  by Jesse Olszynko-Gryn. Today, home pregnancy tests are cheap and ubiquitous. For countless women, these over-the-counter retail products mediate between the uncertainty of a missed period and the potentially life-changing decision either to prepare for motherhood or to seek an abortion. As artist Tracey Emin put it in her 2000 installation Feeling Pregnant, […]
• Rebirth for the Royals? 04/12/2012
  by Charlotte Knowles. In The Human Condition Hannah Arendt makes a distinction between the fact of physical birth and the fundamental significance of natality. Natality is not contiguous with the event of physical birth, but is a kind of ‘second birth’, occurring when we enter the public and political sphere. Natality is characterised by ‘uniqueness, action, […]
• About this Blog 02/12/2012
  The MaMSIE (Mapping Maternal Subjectivities, Identities and Ethics) blog endeavours to create a space for critical debates surrounding the maternal, and explore the unique site it occupies at the potent intersection between scientific possibilities, psychosocial practices and cultural representations. The blog serves as an interdisciplinary platform for rese […]