Fertile Visions: The Uterus as a Narrative Space in Cinema from the Americas

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Fertile Visions conceptualises the uterus as a narrative space so that the female reproductive body can be understood beyond the constraints of a gendered analysis. Unravelling pregnancy from notions of maternity and mothering demands that we think differently about narratives of reproduction. This is crucial in the current global political climate wherein the gender-specificity of pregnancy contributes to how bodies that reproduce are marginalised, controlled, and criminalised. Anne Carruthers demonstrates fascinating and insightful close analyses of films such as Juno, Birth, Ixcanul and Arrival as examples of the uterus as a narrative space. Fertile Visions engages with research on the foetal ultrasound scan as well as phenomenologies, affect and spectatorship in film studies to offer a new way to look, think and analyse pregnancy and the pregnant body in cinema from the Americas.

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This is an intellectually muscular approach to pregnancy (deliberately re-presented as the uterus), and a highly original conception of the uterus as narrative space. Carruthers deploys phenomenology to focus on the uterus as distinct from motherhood/maternity, and pursues her topic via wide-ranging and impressive research in all the areas of film studies touched upon. * Kate Ince, Professor of French and Visual Studies, University of Birmingham, UK *

Author Bio

Anne Carruthers is an Associate Lecturer at Newcastle University, UK, where she teaches film studies. She is an experienced script reader, and her research interests lie in phenomenologies, narrative, and close textual analysis.