Jennifer Banks: Natality — In Conversation with Christine Emba

Join Washington Post columnist Christine Emba and Yale University Press’s Jennifer Banks for an intimate conversation about Jennifer’s new book Natality: Toward a Philosophy of Birth, and about the important philosophical question of being born, a topic worth reopening for the 21st century.

“[Despite] birth’s recurring presence in the written record, and despite rumors of some long-​lost matriarchal age and society that privileged a feminine divine and saw birth as the primary axis of imaginative, political, and social power, there is little evidence that birth was ever the foundational experience that any culture organized itself around. Just as women have been seen, in Simone de Beauvoir’s phrasing, as “the second sex,” birth has a sense of secondariness about it; it has long hovered in death’s shadow, quietly performing its under-​recognized labor.” — Jennifer Banks, Commonweal 

We couldn’t be more excited to be inviting you to a very special Interintellect SuperSalon with author and editor Jennifer Banks, hosted by our friend Christine Emba. Celebrating the release of Jennifer’s new book Natality: Toward a Philosophy of Birth we will come together from around the world to reflect on the philosophy of birth as a complement to our more frequently discussed philosophy of death, as well as our own relationship with the act of being born.

Hope you’ll join our conversation!

Recommended Readings:

Reviews and summaries of Natality:

• https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/natality-mortality-banks-arendt-children-india-feminism
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/04/27/natality-jennifer-banks-without-children-peggy-odonnell-heffington/
• https://currentpub.com/2023/05/02/roundtable-natality-toward-a-philosophy-of-birth/
• https://comment.org/mortality-and-natality-in-the-pandemic-2/

Read the book:

Natality: Toward a Philosophy of Birth

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