4. “Ugly . . . but Irresistible”: Maternal Instinct on Stage

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Maternal Instinct

Maternal instinct

2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (17) ◽  
pp. 18-18
Author(s):  
Lynne Pearce
Keyword(s):  
Maternal Instinct

The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva

Hypatia ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 104-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Butler
Keyword(s):  
Psychoanalytic Theory ◽  
Julia Kristeva ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Politics ◽  
Linguistic Practice ◽  
Maternal Instinct ◽  
Theory Of Language ◽  
Maternal Discourse ◽  
Symbolic Speech

Julia Kristeva attempts to expose the limits of Lacan's theory of language by revealing the semiotic dimension of language that it excludes. She argues that the semiotic potential of language is subversive, and describes the semiotic as a poetic-maternal linguistic practice that disrupts the symbolic, understood as culturally intelligible rule-governed speech. In the course of arguing that the semiotic contests the universality of the Symbolic, Kristeva makes several theoretical moves which end up consolidating the power of the Symbolic and paternal authority generally. She defends a maternal instinct as a pre-discursive biological necessity, thereby naturalizing a specific cultural configuration of maternity. In her use of psychoanalytic theory, she ends up claiming the cultural unintelligibility of lesbianism. Her distinction between the semiotic and the Symbolic operates to foreclose a cultural investigation into the genesis of precisely those feminine principles for which she claims a pre-discursive, naturalistic ontology. Although she claims that the maternal aspects of language are repressed in Symbolic speech and provide a critical possibility of displacing the hegemony of the paternal/symbolic, her very descriptions of the maternal appear to accept rather than contest the inevitable hegemony of the Symbolic. In conclusion, this essay offers a genealogical critique of the maternal discourse in Kristeva and suggests that recourse to the maternal does not constitute a subversive strategy as Kristeva appears to assume.

scholarly journals Macierzyństwo jako wartość filozoficzna i moralna

Etyka ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 193-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daria Łamejko
Keyword(s):  
Traditional Approach ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
Maternal Experience ◽  
Proper Role ◽  
Social Authority ◽  
Maternal Instinct ◽  
Women's Culture ◽  
Wide Group ◽  
New Perspective

The article concentrates on attempts of treating the maternal perspective as valuable in moral philosophy. The author traces the evolution of maternal behaviours in history and reconstructs the development of ethical theories determining women’s proper role in society. She raises the question why none of the philosophers gave any consideration to the maternal experience. Her conclusion is that traditional philosophical discourse assumes motherhood as just part of a wide group of issues determined as ,,family”. Classical philosophers claim that maternal love is natural and innate so it cannot be valuable. Their analyses fail to take account of maternal experience as a source of moral virtues like self-sacrifice, patience, responsibility, care or devalues this terms as not so important as male virtues like impartiality, non-interference, justice or individual’s autonomy. The author presents an alternative, new, female approach to morality. Simone de Beauvoir, Lucy Irigaray and Adrienne Rich criticize classical vision of motherhood in Western culture. They challenge traditional conviction of producing children as a natural destiny of all women determined by inborn maternal instinct. They treat maternal function in category of independent and deliberate choice. This new perspective replace traditional approach describing motherhood in terms of reproduction and ,,natural obligation”. Motherhood in modern thinking is something more than biological production of children. The figure of mother could become an important symbol in ethics and various aspects of our culture. Acceptance of women’s culture would show that women have the same moral and social authority as man. In conclusion the author emphasize the need to present motherhood as a remarkable philosophical and moral value in modern ethics.

scholarly journals Re P (Surrogacy: Residence) [2008] 1FLR 177

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-218
Author(s):  
Mary Welstead
Keyword(s):  
Maternal Instinct

ADDICTED TO MOTHERHOOD – A CAUTIONARY TALEThe events in Re P  (Surrogacy: Residence) [2008] 1FLR 177, are of such complexity and involve so many people that the dramatis personae below may be necessary to help the reader understand the tangled tale of the woman whose maternal instinct can only be described as insatiable.

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