The Feminist Lecture Program are excited to announce a brand new collaboration with the Vagina Museum! The same amazing online weekly feminist content you expect from us, now hosted by the worlds only bricks and mortar Vagina Museum!
CLASS DESCRIPTION
Join guest lecturers Holly Isard & Jo Harrison to explore reproductive labour and breastfeeding as work and for an extensive Q&A discussion.
"In a context of severe time poverty, double-cup, hands-free pumps are considered the most desirable, as they permit one to express milk from both breasts at once while driving to work on the freeway.
Nancy Fraser, 2016
Waged or unwaged, breastfeeding is and has always been work. Looking back
through its history one finds examples of wet-nursing, lactation porn,
cell-culturing and human milk banks. Using social reproduction theory as a
framework, this session will use examples from the history of art and popular
culture to track the contradictions of breastfeeding under capitalism. From
medieval altarpieces of the Madonna breastfeeding, and early modern paintings
of Roman Charity nursing her father, through to contemporary works of
techno-optimism and Instagram posts of breast pumping celebrities. As these
depictions of breastfeeding play out on screen a number of threads emerge:
the fetishisation of breast milk; breastfeeding as a social relation;
maternal generosity; denaturalisings; biocapitalism and the value of breast
milk, amongst others. Weaving image with word demonstrates the many forms of
breastfeeding as labour across history.
Join lecturers Holly Isard and Jo Harrison for a whistle-stop art historical tour through images of breastfeeding which will explore reproductive labour and breastfeeding as work. Followed by Q&A which welcomes open discussion with the group further exploring examples of reproductive labour (including and beyond breastfeeding) and how this is entangled within the contradictory landscape of capitalism. Expect to learn about the concept of social reproduction theory a core concept within feminist theory.
ABOUT OUR LECTURER
Jo Harrison (she/her) is founder and curator of 'Repronomics', an ACE funded
research project exploring the intersection of reproduction and economics
through the lens of visual arts. She is Director at The Approach, London and
recently co-founded and launched The Arts Working Parents Alliance with
Hettie Judah. AWP is a UK based peer network, seeking to make the art
industry a more accessible and welcoming place for parents.
Holly Isard (she/her) is a Wellcome Trust funded PhD student at the University of West London, where she is part of the Gender, Technology and Work research cluster. Starting from the position that all gestation can be thought through the lens of labour, her research explores the politics of reproductive technologies in visual culture."
UPCOMING SESSIONS WITH THE FEMINIST LECTURE PROGRAM
Friday 26th January
Luisa Maria MacCormack
Hysterical Bodies: Gender, Medicine and Wandering Uteruses
Monday 29th January
Alekzsandra Rokvity
Endometriosis Activism: Making the Invisible Visible
Monday 5th February
Eleanor Medhurst
Dressing Dykes: A History of Lesbian Fashion
Monday 12th February
Parumveer Walia
Exploring the the Abject: Excreta, Feminism and Performativity in Art History
Monday 19th February
Holly Isard and Jo Harrison
Breastfeeding as Work: The Contradictions of Breastfeeding Under Capitalism
Monday 26th February
Sophie Paul
READING MAKES ME HORNY: Feminist Publishing and Masturbatory Reading
