Otherwise than Birthing

This paper is an experiment in collaborative authorship and presentation. We utilize the resources of queer theory to stage the problem of reproductive futurism—namely, whether the normalization of reproduction forecloses upon the possibility of radical change.  This will be done through a discussion of two distinct case studies.  The first reads Hannah Arendt’s conception of natality against some of its invocations by the maternal turn. It offers the natality of abortion—the newness and possibilities opened up by the refusal to reproduce—as a counter-paradigm for the newness and transformative possibilities imputed to birth.  The second turns to rabbinic literature to explore figures and categories for birth, reproduction, etc. that emphasize not only important discontinuities between rabbinic categories and our own but also allow us to see the investments in heteronormative reproductive futurity as strange to the rabbinic sources as (many claim is) authorized by them.