PUBLICATIONS

TROUBLING MOTHERHOOD: INTERROGATIONS OF MATERNITY IN GLOBAL POLITICS

edited by Lucy B. Hall, Anna L. Weissman, and Laura J. Shepherd

Oxford University Press, 2020

• The first book-length treatment to provide a comprehensive interrogation of motherhood and maternality

• Utilizes an intersectional lens to problematize and destabilize the institution of motherhood, and examine how it is gendered, (hetero)sexed, raced, and classed in the context of twenty-first century global politics

"MOTHERHOOD AND MATERNALITY IN GLOBAL POLITICS"

with Lucy B. Hall, in Troubling Motherhood, Oxford University Press 2020, pp. 1-16

• traces the work and influence of feminist contributions to the theorizing of motherhood and maternity to explore the ways in which practices of global politics shape and are shaped by the institution of motherhood.

• Calling attention to the increasing and at times deadly infringements on women’s reproductive rights across the globe, explains the role of reproduction as central to the site of maternity and motherhood, negotiating the relationship between women, reproductive bodies and the state, and how the gendered logics of war frequently rely on maternal imagery, discourse and representation

• concludes with description of the volume’s three sections and individual chapter contributions

"IDEAL CITIZENS AND FAMILY VALUES: THE POLITICS OF REPRODUCTIVE FITNESS"

in Troubling Motherhood, Oxford University Press 2020, pp. 103-121

• Identifies and defines “biological” reproductive difference as the foundation of traditional sex-gender roles, particularly emphasizing the focus on procreation in normative femininity.

• Reproductive difference is key - foundational to Western patriarchal society and its definitions of kinship, family, and sociopolitical belonging.

• Ultimately, shows how the institution of Motherhood, “family values,” and traditional gender roles have been coopted by the rhetoric of the nation and institutionalized by the state as a site of difference

"SEX, SEXUALITY, REPRODUCTION, AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY"

in Handbook of Gender and Security, edited by Caron Gentry, Laura J. Shepherd, and Laura Sjoberg, Routledge 2018, pp. 284-295

• Analyzes sex and sexuality through the lens of gender and security

• Demonstrates how the state controls reproduction through conceptions of normative gender and sexuality and the international security implications of this

• Describes connections between birth and belonging, the important distinctions between "nation" and "state," and select case studies

• Case studies provide examples of how laws limit reproduction to only certain citizens, showing that far more than simply recreating the next generation of humans, reproduction is sociobiological: patriarchal values are recreated and reified when reproduction is limited to heterosexual sex acts.

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“REPRONORMATIVITY AND THE REPRODUCTION OF THE NATION-STATE: THE STATE AND SEXUALITY COLLIDE”

Journal of GLBT Family Studies, 2017 (first online in 2016), 13:3: pp. 275-305

• Identifies the difference in support between same-sex marriage and same-sex reproductive rights 

• Provides three case studies—Poland's strict abortion policies, France's law against lesbians utilizing artificial reproduction technologies, and Sweden's history of sterilizing trans individuals

• proposes theory of Repronormativity - nationalistic normative reproduction to explain margins of support

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