Foucault's futures : a critique of reproductive reason / Penelope Deutscher.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In Foucault's Futures , Penelope Deutscher reconsiders the role of procreation in Foucault's thought, especially its proximity to risk, mortality, and death. She brings together his work on sexuality and biopolitics to challenge our understanding of the politicization of reproduction. By analyzing Foucault's contribution to the politics of maternity and its influence on the work of thinkers such as Roberto Esposito, Giorgio Agamben, and Judith Butler, Deutscher provides new insights into the conflicted political status of reproductive conduct and what it means for feminism and critical theory.

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CHOICE Review

Guided by Foucault's famous claim that sex has become "administered," Deutscher (Northwestern Univ.) examines the biopolitical in the work of Foucault and, most notably, Giorgio Agamben and Judith Butler. Deutscher connects Foucault's biopolitical to the thanatopolitical, or the characterization of women-as-givers-of-life with an understood concomitant ability to destroy life. Deutscher notes the thanatopolitical becomes a justification for policies severely shaping and restricting reproductive rights. Women are seen as empowered with decisions over life, as vessels of the future, and that effects policies regarding their sovereignty over their own bodies; as a result, women possess complicated positions in society as not quite fully human (that is, not quite as full bearers of rights). Deutscher connects Agamben's "bare life," or the deprivation of legal and ontological status, to her thesis. Likewise, she refocuses Butler's concept of "precarious life" to envision the ways reproductive rights are viewed as threatening future "life," thereby creating a legally precarious status for women. Deutscher adds to the discussion her notion of "ontological tact" to allow for multiple possible conceptualizations by women regarding the ambiguity inherent in the status of the fetus. Foucault's Futures is insightful and creative in linking various threads of contemporary philosophical interest. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper division undergraduates through faculty. --Margaret Alison Betz, Rutgers University, Camden