Reproduction Revisited | A Workshop-Conversation
Workshop-Conversation with
Alyssa Battistoni | Gala Rexer
Feminist scholarship and movements have long recognized the reproductive body as a site of politics. From demands for wages for housework, to access to various reproductive technologies, to struggles over air pollution and reproductive health, activists, theorists, and birthing people insist that what sustains life must be protected and shared. The reproductive body and reproductive labor reveal what is taken for granted, invisibilized, and naturalized in capitalist societies and an increasingly fractured world order. How can we theorize reproduction at a time of overlapping crises, ecological breakdown, rising authoritarianism, and the ongoing devaluation of care?
This evening brings together Alyssa Battistoni and Gala Rexer to discuss what feminist theory, environmental humanities, and Marxist or (new) materialist thought offer us to revisit reproduction. It will proceed in a spirit of sympathetic critique, taking the inherited frameworks of feminist theory seriously while asking where they may need to be revisited or sharpened to better account for the current moment. In doing so, the evening engages a question at the heart of series Damaged Deliberations: How might we imagine forms of community that do not rest on exclusion and invisibilization but on an expansion of participation and responsibility toward both the human and the more-than-human world?
The evening is organized as a series of short impulses, alternating with open moments for questions and contributions from the audience. While the presentations and discussion will be held in English, questions and contributions in German are welcome and will be translated.
© image: Carmen Winant, My Birth (2018). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Credit: The Modern Women’s Fund.
When
Thursday,
16 July 2026,
7.30 pm
16 July 2026,
7.30 pm
Where
diffrakt | centre for theoretical periphery
Free admission
All our events can be attended free of charge.
About
Feminist scholarship and movements have long recognized the reproductive body as a site of politics. From demands for wages for housework, to access to various reproductive technologies, to struggles over air pollution and reproductive health, activists, theorists, and birthing people insist that what sustains life must be protected and shared. The reproductive body and reproductive labor reveal what is taken for granted, invisibilized, and naturalized in capitalist societies and an increasingly fractured world order. How can we theorize reproduction at a time of overlapping crises, ecological breakdown, rising authoritarianism, and the ongoing devaluation of care?
This evening brings together Alyssa Battistoni and Gala Rexer to discuss what feminist theory, environmental humanities, and Marxist or (new) materialist thought offer us to revisit reproduction. It will proceed in a spirit of sympathetic critique, taking the inherited frameworks of feminist theory seriously while asking where they may need to be revisited or sharpened to better account for the current moment. In doing so, the evening engages a question at the heart of series Damaged Deliberations: How might we imagine forms of community that do not rest on exclusion and invisibilization but on an expansion of participation and responsibility toward both the human and the more-than-human world?
The evening is organized as a series of short impulses, alternating with open moments for questions and contributions from the audience. While the presentations and discussion will be held in English, questions and contributions in German are welcome and will be translated.
© image: Carmen Winant, My Birth (2018). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Credit: The Modern Women’s Fund.
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