Disembodying Women: Perspectives on Pregnancy and the Unborn
In collecting 17 papers she had presented at professional meetings, Duden here aims to "enable the nonacademic reader to listen in on... well-read and passionately interested friends." Her main interest is the history of the body, but she disassociates herself from the positions typically associated with the current abortion controversies. Employing erudite vocabulary, she contends that the human fetus as conceptualized today is not a creature of God or natural fact but an engineered construct of modern society. Advances in technology make pregnancy a "managed process"--a matter of historical epistemology. A professor of social sciences in Germany and author of Women Beneath the Skin (Harvard, 1991), Duden takes a daring look at a controversial subject. Her book is recommended for academic and large public libraries.- Helen Rippier Wheeler, formerly Univ. of Cal. SLIS, BerkeleyCopyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.