Fetal Positions

The Talmudic Construction of Personhood
1. Auflage 2027
ISBN: 978-0-520-42483-8
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 292 Seiten, Trade Paperback, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm

Fetal Positions explores how ancient Jews in Sasanian Babylonia weighed an issue that remains all too timely: the legal status of the fetus. Sara Ronis uses the Babylonian Talmud as a springboard to ask a range of questions about the rabbis’ multiple approaches to the fetus: In what ways do the rabbis construct the fetus as a legal object? A legal subject? What kinds of rights and responsibilities does a fetus have? When is a fetus “just” a fetus and when is it something more?Ronis analyzes ancient rabbinic discourse on the fetus by combining close readings of primary texts from late antiquity with approaches drawn from religious studies, anthropology, critical animal studies, gender studies, ethics, and legal history. Fetal Positions reinscribes both Jewishness and the diversity of late antiquity into our discussions of the fetus, ultimately offering a new way to think about fetal personhood—and personhood more broadly—as both socially mediated and culturally constructed.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ronis, Sara

Fachgebiete

• Rechtswissenschaften Recht, Rechtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsethik, Weltethos
• Geisteswissenschaften Jüdische Studien Jüdische Studien Heilige & Traditionstexte: Torah, Talmud, Mischna, Halacha

Inhaltsverzeichnis

CONTENTS  PrefaceAcknowledgmentsNotes on Translation  Introduction: Embryonic Ideas and Ideas About Embryos1. Liminal Legacies: Fetal Inheritance and Fetal Sex2. Power, Pregnancy, and the Sacred Community3. Human(?) Living(?) Person(?): The Case of the Dead Fetus4. Fighting Men and Goring Cows: The Fetus as Victim and Perpetrator5. “The Thigh of Its Mother”? Enslaved People, Animals, and the Subjugated Fetus6. Fetus vs. Fetus: Jews, Non-Jews, and the Limits of DifferenceConclusion: Pregnant with Possibilities  BibliographyIndex

Über Autor(innen)

Sara Ronis is Professor of Theology at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas, and author of Demons in the Details: Demonic Discourse and Rabbinic Culture in Late Antique Babylonia.