Natality: Toward a Philosophy of Birth

Birth is one of the most fraught and polarized issues of our time, at the center of debates around abortion, gender, work, and medicine. But birth is rarely thought of as an integral part of the human condition. We have long intellectual traditions of wrestling with mortality, but few have ever heard ofnatality, the term political theorist Hannah Arendt used to describe birth's active role in our lives. In this ambitious, revelatory book, Jennifer Banks begins with Arendt's definitions to develop an expansive framework for birth's philosophical, political, and artistic significance.

Banks focuses on seven revolutionary western thinkers-Arendt, Fredrich Nietzsche, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, Sojourner Truth, Adrienne Rich, and Toni Morrison-to reveal a provocative countertradition of birth. She explores these writers' own experiences alongside the generative ways they contended with natality in their work. Illuminating and timely,Natality invites readers to attend to birth as a challenging and life-affirming reminder of our shared humanity and our capacity for renewal.