Articulating Life's Memory: U.S. Medical Rhetoric about Abortion in the Nineteenth CenturyArticulating Life's Memory offers a unique view of the history of abortion in early America. Nathan Stormer's work moves beyond general histories of medicine, science, and women; it provides specific insight into how the earliest medical writings on abortion served to create cultural memory. Nineteenth-century medical texts presented the act of abortion as a threat to the carefully circumscribed concepts of nation and race. Stormer analyzes a wealth of literature (and illustrations) from the period to explore the rhetorical techniques that led early Americans to presume that abortion put the integrity of all of American culture at risk. The book's first part provides a layered context for understanding medical practices within the rhetoric of memory formation and sets early antiabortion efforts within the wider framework of nineteenth-century biopolitics and racism. In Part II of the study, Stormer examines the substance of the memory constituted by these early medical practices. Making a major contribution to the study of rhetoric, Articulating Life's Memory will be invaluable to scholars researching reproductive rights and feminist and cultural histories of medicine. |
Contents
Organic Discourse | 63 |
Embodying a Matrix | 89 |
Prenatal Space | 119 |
Copyright | |
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Articulating Life's Memory: U.S. Medical Rhetoric about Abortion in the ... Nathan Stormer No preview available - 2002 |
Common terms and phrases
abortionists American Journal anamnesis anatomy antiabortion rhetoric antiabortionists archive argued articulation became biological biopolitical biopower body criticism Boston Medical bourgeois Certeau Charles Knowlton Chicago clinical confession Criminal Abortion cultural memory discourse discussion Diseases doctors early embodied emphasis in original Ergot examination example female body Feminism Feminist fetal fetus Foucault function gender genealogical gynecology History ibid images individual Journal of Obstetrics Judith Butler knowledge Lectures life's memory M.D. thesis male maternal Maternal Impressions Medi Medical and Surgical medical practices menstruation metaphor metonymic Michel Foucault mnemonic modern moral nation nature Neoplatonic nineteenth century Norman Gevitz norms observation Obstetrics organs ovaries patient perception physical physicians physiology political pregnancy prenatal space Quackery race racial reproductive Routledge SCWM sense sexual Smith-Rosenberg social society spatial speculum suicide Sup Ct Surgical Journal texts tion truth University Press uterine uterus vision Wertz woman womb women physicians women's bodies York