Symposia
Call for Papers
Natality: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Birth as Existential Experience
Virtual Symposium of the Society for the Study of Pregnancy and Birth (SSPRB)
April 3-4, 2025
The Society for the Study of Pregnancy and Birth (SSPRB) is pleased to announce its first symposium, Natality: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Birth as Existential Experience, held in collaboration with Dr. Lois Lee of the University of Kent.
This symposium is a virtual event that will take place online across two half day sessions on April 3rd and April 4th, 2025 (to facilitate participation across time zones).
Co-convenors: Dr Anna Hennessey (Director, Society for the Study of Pregnancy and Birth) and Dr Lois Lee (University of Kent)
In the academic sphere, death has historically been treated as the most fundamental existential experience, if not the foundation of our existential condition. Over the past few decades, however, a rise in philosophical, critical, and empirical perspectives has emerged to challenge this idea, pointing to birth as an equally profound existential experience. The event of birth, like that of death, is deeply implicated in our sense of what it is to exist, to be alive and to live. What happens, some ask, if we replace the idea of humans as ‘mortals’ – creatures who die – with the idea of humans as ‘natals’ – creatures who are born?
In her work on the human condition, political philosopher Hannah Arendt famously explored the concept of natality as the human capacity to begin anew. Contemporary philosophers of birth such as Adriana Cavarero have brought about a rich embodied meaning to the concept of natality, examining birth and the body, as well as maternity, in their discussions of the topic. Research elsewhere in the humanities and in empirical studies point to the significance of beginnings, birth, and rebirth, both symbolically and in people’s everyday lives. In some cases, we find birth in these contexts not as one-time events that have taken place in each of our pasts, but as something undertaken and/or encountered repeatedly, in our own lives and the lives of others. Such approaches draw attention to the deep connection in experience and culture between birth and death, making it often difficult to untangle these two bookends of life.
This symposium takes natality as its own beginning and seeks to bring together people across fields who are engaging with the significance of the concept of natality, as well as with what it means to give birth, to be born, to create, to be created, or to be natal. Our collaboration asks:
This international symposium will take place online across two half day sessions (to facilitate participation across time zones). The event will be recorded and accessible on request for those not able to attend.
We invite abstracts for short papers (15 minute max) from any discipline to be submitted by Tuesday 15 October 2024. Please email abstracts of no more than 250 words and a short biography to the Society for the Study of Pregnancy and Birth (SSPRB): [email protected]
Bursaries are available to support participation for unwaged participants; please indicate that you would like to be considered for a bursary in your submission.
To learn more about the Society for the Study of Pregnancy and Birth, visit our website at https://www.ssprb.org You can contact us at https://www.ssprb.org/contact.html or via SSPRB at [email protected]
Sign up for the SSPRB Newsletter here: https://www.ssprb.org
Gallery Images Above (left to right): Pregnant Self Portrait, Ninth Month, Mari Chordà, copyright 1966. Creative Commons 3.0; Nebula bubbles, pxfuel; Educate to Liberate, John Adams Community College Mural, copyright 2012, Haight Ashbury Muralists, Detail of Mother and Child by Miranda Bergman (photo, copyright 2020, Anna Hennessey)
Society for the Study of Pregnancy and Birth (SSPRB)
Natality: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Birth as Existential Experience
Virtual Symposium of the Society for the Study of Pregnancy and Birth (SSPRB)
April 3-4, 2025
The Society for the Study of Pregnancy and Birth (SSPRB) is pleased to announce its first symposium, Natality: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Birth as Existential Experience, held in collaboration with Dr. Lois Lee of the University of Kent.
This symposium is a virtual event that will take place online across two half day sessions on April 3rd and April 4th, 2025 (to facilitate participation across time zones).
Co-convenors: Dr Anna Hennessey (Director, Society for the Study of Pregnancy and Birth) and Dr Lois Lee (University of Kent)
In the academic sphere, death has historically been treated as the most fundamental existential experience, if not the foundation of our existential condition. Over the past few decades, however, a rise in philosophical, critical, and empirical perspectives has emerged to challenge this idea, pointing to birth as an equally profound existential experience. The event of birth, like that of death, is deeply implicated in our sense of what it is to exist, to be alive and to live. What happens, some ask, if we replace the idea of humans as ‘mortals’ – creatures who die – with the idea of humans as ‘natals’ – creatures who are born?
In her work on the human condition, political philosopher Hannah Arendt famously explored the concept of natality as the human capacity to begin anew. Contemporary philosophers of birth such as Adriana Cavarero have brought about a rich embodied meaning to the concept of natality, examining birth and the body, as well as maternity, in their discussions of the topic. Research elsewhere in the humanities and in empirical studies point to the significance of beginnings, birth, and rebirth, both symbolically and in people’s everyday lives. In some cases, we find birth in these contexts not as one-time events that have taken place in each of our pasts, but as something undertaken and/or encountered repeatedly, in our own lives and the lives of others. Such approaches draw attention to the deep connection in experience and culture between birth and death, making it often difficult to untangle these two bookends of life.
This symposium takes natality as its own beginning and seeks to bring together people across fields who are engaging with the significance of the concept of natality, as well as with what it means to give birth, to be born, to create, to be created, or to be natal. Our collaboration asks:
- How should we understand abstract notions of ‘natality’ phenomenologically, philosophically, religiously, socially, empirically, and artistically?
- What is the existential significance of the condition of having been born?
- How does natality, in any sense, operate as a source of meaning?
- How is the significance of natality gendered?
- What does the death-focus of philosophy tell us about philosophy as a (sometimes) secular tradition? What can we learn from comparison with studies of religion, in which origin myths and creation stories, resurrection and reincarnation, and other conceptions of birth have been central?
- What ideas of connection and relationship emerge from natal approaches? What ideas of human plurality?
- What are the implications for politics and ethics, either in relation to Arendt’s political philosophy of natality, or to birth and creativity in their diverse senses?
- What are the prospects for future research and, if there is a need for a broad and multidisciplinary area of study related to natality, what should its agenda be?
This international symposium will take place online across two half day sessions (to facilitate participation across time zones). The event will be recorded and accessible on request for those not able to attend.
We invite abstracts for short papers (15 minute max) from any discipline to be submitted by Tuesday 15 October 2024. Please email abstracts of no more than 250 words and a short biography to the Society for the Study of Pregnancy and Birth (SSPRB): [email protected]
Bursaries are available to support participation for unwaged participants; please indicate that you would like to be considered for a bursary in your submission.
To learn more about the Society for the Study of Pregnancy and Birth, visit our website at https://www.ssprb.org You can contact us at https://www.ssprb.org/contact.html or via SSPRB at [email protected]
Sign up for the SSPRB Newsletter here: https://www.ssprb.org
Gallery Images Above (left to right): Pregnant Self Portrait, Ninth Month, Mari Chordà, copyright 1966. Creative Commons 3.0; Nebula bubbles, pxfuel; Educate to Liberate, John Adams Community College Mural, copyright 2012, Haight Ashbury Muralists, Detail of Mother and Child by Miranda Bergman (photo, copyright 2020, Anna Hennessey)
Society for the Study of Pregnancy and Birth (SSPRB)