Rethinking Birth and Maternity as Philosophical Categories: Hannah Arendt's Notion Of Natality In Dialogue With Contemporary Feminist Thought

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The aim of my project is to contest the "thanatological" turn in twentieth-century European philosophy by rethinking "birth" and "maternity" as philosophical categories. I propose to do this by developing Hannah Arendt's notion of natality with further resources from contemporary feminist thought.Mortality has been conceived as a constitutive part of human existence since at least the thought of the ancient Greeks but in the twentieth century various continental philosophers foregrounded it again, offering different interpretations of death (Heidegger 1927, Lévinas 1992, Derrida 1993). In this context Hannah Arendt (1958) proposes the alternative paradigm of 'natality'. She interprets the meaning of birth in terms of 'initiative', attending to the bodily and plural reality of human existence. Arendt's proposed shift paved the way for a new feminist philosophical current concentrating on the analysis of the notions of gender, birth and maternity, most notably in the work of Cavarero, Irigaray, Kristeva, Ruddick and Duden.My research aims to investigate why, despite the success of these feminist positions, there is still a tendency to reject birth and maternity as philosophical categories. How is this rejection connected to the return of thanatology in twentieth century philosophy and with an uncritical sexual differentiation of humankind? What challenge may the categories of birth and maternity pose to the Western philosophical tradition?This research will address these questions by interpreting birth and maternity not as mere natural events, restricted in time and linked to an uncritical vision of femininity, but as authentic existential possibilities, to be elevated to philosophical categories. It will investigate how birth and maternally-oriented philosophical thought challenge traditional philosophical and political categories, such as the notions of autonomy, freedom, and sovereignty and will develop a philosophical approach that allows us to focus on the interdependence and the relationality of the human condition.