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On Having an Own Child

Reproductive Technologies and the Cultural Construction of Childhood
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
On Having an Own Child explores the complex ideas surrounding genetics, family, and relatedness, focusing on why individuals desire children, particularly through reproductive technologies like IVF and ICSI. Karin Lesnik-Oberstein challenges common assumptions that such desires are merely biological drives or social constructs, using psychoanalysis as a tool to delve into deeper questions about the notion of creating an 'own' child and what this means in the context of reproductive technology.
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Format: Paperback / softback
$8699
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

Ideal for readers interested in philosophy, psychology, reproductive ethics, and the social impacts of reproductive technologies. This book appeals to those seeking a thoughtful and original academic analysis of why people seek to have children via modern medical methods.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

How are ideas of genetics, 'blood', the family, and relatedness created and consumed? This title considers why people want children, and specifically why people want children produced by reproductive technologies (such as IVF, ICSI and more).

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

How are ideas of genetics, 'blood', the family, and relatedness created and consumed? This is the first book ever to consider in depth why people want children, and specifically why people want children produced by reproductive technologies (such as IVF, ICSI etc).

As the book demonstrates, even books ostensibly devoted to the topic of why people want children and the reasons for using reproductive technologies tend to start with the assumption that this is either simply a biological drive to reproduce, or a socially instilled desire.

This book uses psychoanalysis not to provide an answer in its own right, but as an analytic tool to probe more deeply the problems of these assumptions. The idea that reproductive technologies simply supply an 'own' child is questioned in this volume in terms of asking how and why reproductive technologies are seen to create this 'ownness'.

Given that it is the idea of an 'own' child that underpins and justifies the whole use of reproductive technologies, this book is a crucial and wholly original intervention in this complex and highly topical area.

On Having an Own Child is a vital read for anyone interested in the intersections of genetics, family, and the desire for children through reproductive technologies.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781855755451

Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 01 January 2008

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Karnac Books

Audience: Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Width: 147.0mm

Height: 230.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 224

About the Author

All of Karin Lesnik-Oberstein's academic research based on inter- and multi- disciplinary research has been on childhood as a cultural and historical construction. Her first monograph (published by the Clarendon Press of OUP in 1994) addressed this issue through the lens of children's literature studies. Subsequent work analyses childhood as an identity in fields ranging from psychology, anthropology, sociology, and history, to law and medicine. Her work on childhood is primarily based on approaches drawn from Freudian psychoanalytic thinking, through the particular use made of psychoanalysis in turn by thinkers such as Professor Jacqueline Rose and Erica Burman in literature and psychology respectively. Her edited volumes have drawn together fields in innovative ways and demonstrated how this kind of analysis of identity can illuminate thinking across a range of disciplines. That her approach is not limited to childhood as such, but extends to any thinking about identity and meaning is demonstrated also by her latest edited book on productions of gender and sexuality, 'The Last Taboo: Women and Body Hair' (Manchester University Press, 2007).

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