Philosophers and artists frequently make use of metaphors drawn from female bodily experiences of pregnancy and childbirth to express intellectual or artistic creativity. While philosophical and artistic originality are presented as a kind of spiritual pregnancy, women's bodily pregnancies are often presented as at best intellectually or spiritually insignificant, to be valued solely for their products — physical children. I contrast the view of pregnancy found in philosophers such as Plato and Nietzsche, and artists such as Chagall, with an understanding of pregnancy influenced by feminist body art, and focus on the significance of the extent and pace of change that women experience during pregnancy.
Ainley, Alison (1988) ` "Ideal Selfishness": Nietzsche's Metaphor of Maternity', pp. 116-30 in David Farrell Krell and David Wood (eds) Exceedingly Nietzsche. London: Routledge.
2.
Ariss, Rachel (1998) `Mackenzie, Elizabeth: The Radiant Monster', Herizons12(2): 43-4.
3.
Betterton, Rosemary (1996) An Intimate Distance: Women, Artists and the Body . New York: Routledge.
4.
Bigwood, Carol (1991) `Renaturalizing the Body (with the Help of Merleau-Ponty)' , Hypatia6(3): 54-73.
5.
Carr, Karen L. (1995) `Optical Allusions: Hysterical Memories and the Screening of Pregnant Sites', Postmodern Culture5(2), URL www.iath.virginia.edu/pmc/current.issue
6.
de Lauretis, Teresa (1990) `Rethinking Women's Cinema: Aesthetics and Feminist Theory', pp. 288-308 in Patricia Erens (ed.) Issues in Feminist Film Criticism. Bloomington : Indiana University Press.
7.
Diethe, Carol (1989) `Nietzsche and the Woman Question', History of European Ideas11: 865-75.
8.
Duden, Barbara (1993) Disembodying Women: Perspectives on Pregnancy and the Unborn, Lee Hoinacki (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
9.
Gatens, Moira (1999) `Power, Bodies and Difference', pp. 227-34 in Janet Price and Margrit Shildrick (eds) Feminist Theory and the Body. New York: Routledge.
10.
Grosz, Elizabeth (1994) Volatile Bodies. Bloomington : Indiana University Press.
11.
Kelly, Mary (1987) `Interview with Mary Kelly', pp. 72-79 in Hilary Robinson (ed.) Visibly Female - Feminism and Art: An Anthology. London: Camden Press .
12.
Kristeva, Julia (1980) Desire in Language, Leon Roudiez (ed.), Thomas Gora, Alice Jardine and Leon Roudiez (trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.
13.
Kristeva, Julia (1986) `Stabat Mater', pp. 160-86 in Toril Moi (ed.) The Kristeva Reader. New York: Columbia University Press.
14.
Kristeva, Julia (1997) `Motherhood According to Giovanni Bellini', pp. 303-31 in Kelly Oliver (ed.) The Portable Kristeva. New York: Columbia University Press.
15.
Lippard, Lucy (1995) `The Pains and Pleasures of Rebirth: European and American Women's Body Art', pp. 99-116 in The Pink Glass Swan. New York: The New Press.
16.
Liss, Andrea (1994) `The Body in Question: Rethinking Motherhood, Alterity and Desire', pp. 80-96 in Joanna Frueh, Cassandra L. Langer and Arlene Raven (eds) New Feminist Criticism. New York: HarperCollins.
17.
Martin, Emily (1987) The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction . Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
18.
Matthews, Sandra and Laura Wexler (2000) Pregnant Pictures. London: Routledge.
19.
Mitchell, Lisa M. and Eugenia Georges (1997) `Cross-cultural Cyborgs: Greek and Canadian Women's Discourses on Fetal Ultrasound', Feminist Studies23(2): 373-401.
20.
Morgan, Lynn M. (1996) `Fetal Relationality in Feminist Philosophy: An Anthropological Critique', Hypatia11(3): 47-70.
21.
Mulvey, Laura (1990) `Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema', pp. 28-40 in Patricia Erens (ed.) Issues in Feminist Film Criticism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
22.
Nietzsche, Friedrich (1921) Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche, Oscar Levy (ed.), Anthony Ludovici (trans.). Toronto: Doubleday.
23.
Nietzsche, Friedrich (1967) Ecce Homo, Walter Kaufmann (trans.). New York: Vintage Books.
Nietzsche, Friedrich (1990) Beyond Good and Evil, R.J. Hollingdale (trans.) . London: Penguin.
26.
Nietzsche, Friedrich (1997) Daybreak, Maudemarie Clark and Brian Leiter (eds), R.J. Hollingdale (trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
27.
O'Brien, Mary (1981) The Politics of Reproduction. Boston, MA: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
28.
Parkes, Graham (1994) Composing the Soul. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
29.
Partington, Angela (1987) `Feminist Art and Avant-Gardism', pp. 228-49 in Hilary Robinson (ed.) Visibly Female - Feminism and Art: An Anthology. London: Camden Press .
30.
Petchesky, Rosalind Pollack (1987) `Foetal Images: The Power of Visual Culture in the Politics of Reproduction', pp. 57-80 in Michelle Stanworth (ed.) Reproductive Technologies: Gender, Motherhood and Medicine. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
31.
Plato (1961) Collected Dialogues , Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (eds). Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press.
32.
Rich, Adrienne (1986) Of Woman Born. New York: W.W. Norton.
33.
Rich, Ruby B. (1990) `In the Name of Feminist Film Criticism', pp. 268-87 in Patricia Erens (ed.) Issues in Feminist Film Criticism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
34.
Sjoo, Monica (1987) `Interview with Monica Sjoo', pp. 80-91 in Hilary Robinson (ed.) Visibly Female - Feminism and Art: An Anthology. London: Camden Press .
35.
Young, Iris Marion (1984) `Pregnant Embodiment: Subjectivity and Alienation' , The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy9: 45-62.
36.
Ziarek, EWA (1992) `At the Limits of Discourse: Heterogeneity, Alterity, and the Maternal Body in Kristeva's Thought', Hypatia7(2): 91-108.
