Editors’ Note: Reproduction, Motherhood, and Sexuality

Abstract

Editors’ NoteReproduction, Motherhood, and Sexuality Guisela Latorre and Judy Tzu-Chun Wu Perhaps one the greatest satisfactions that comes with the job of academic editor is the unique privilege of getting a glimpse—a sneak peek, if you will—of new intellectual directions happening in any given field. As we enter our second year at the helm of Frontiers, we have become increasingly aware of how fortunate we are to read and publish work that, in our humble opinions, represents the future of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. Such an insight and foreknowledge has had a tremendous effect on our individual research and teaching endeavors, for Frontiers constantly compels us to renew, reload, and refresh our praxis as scholars and educators. While the scholarly and creative works published in this issue rigorously and thoughtfully engage prior research in our field, these also distinguish themselves for their originality and progressive intellectual vision. We are thus proud to include in this issue a focused section that extends and expands our knowledge on the theme of our latest special issue, namely reproductive justice and reproductive technologies (Frontiers 34, no. 3.) Though that special issue centered more on the social, historical, medical, and political implications of reproduction, the articles in this issue turn more firmly to the field of representation. Both “Misconceived Metaphors” and “Without a Conceivable Future,” written by Mary Thompson and Nicole Sparling respectively, concern themselves with the way women’s reproduction is politicized in literary and film representation. Caitlin E. C. Myers in her essay “Colonizing the (Reproductive) Future” turns to journalistic coverage of arts (assisted reproductive technologies) with the ultimate purpose of exploring how these representations serve the needs of neoliberal rather than feminist interests in our society. For her part Jennifer Denbow in “Sterilization as Cyborg Performance” explores medical discourse that represents the practice of voluntary sterilization as a threat to patriarchal imperatives that impose reproductive and maternal desire on women’s bodies. In different and unique ways all the articles in this focused section speak volumes about how biased discourses and fictionalized representations can have very real effects on reproductive rights. [End Page vii] Closely related to the politics of reproduction is the often-tangled relationship between discourses on motherhood and nation, concerns that also figure prominently in this issue. Feminist and gender scholars have often critiqued, and in some cased denounced, the naturalized relationship between nationalist and family tropes. The gendering and racialization of the maternal have also been at the center of much intellectual debate in our field. Emily Cheng makes important contributions to these scholarly incursions in “Pearl S. Buck’s ‘American Children’” by underscoring the role that famed novelist and “China specialist” in the 1930s, Pearl S. Buck, played in US/Asia relations through her work as a transnational adoption advocate. The image of benevolent and moral mother of the nation that Buck signified is also a symptom of larger conservative discourses on mothering. Because the concepts of both motherhood and reproduction are also closely related to ideas about sexuality, we felt it was pertinent to include scholarly work on the topic in this issue. For instance, Grey Osterud’s article “‘It’s Very Little I Know about the Facts of Life to This Day’” looks closely at the silencing and shaming that surrounded the sexual lives of rural women in turn-of-the-century New York State. Given existing taboos about sex, providing safe and nurturing spaces for the open discussion of nonnormative sexualities has been an important mission for feminist scholars and activists alike. The contributors to the Intimate Matters roundtable offered their commitment to that mission by celebrating and reflecting on the historic publication of Intimate Matters by John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, the first comprehensive book-length history of sexuality in the United States. The roundtable participants—Joanne Meyerowitz, Cynthia M. Blair, Margot Canaday, Thomas Foster, and Nayan Shah—evaluate the significance of Intimate Matters and also chart the exciting developments in sexuality history since its publication. The pioneering work of Intimate Matters is also mirrored by the role that artists have played in promoting crucial dialogues about sexuality. Chicano artist Joey Terrill, whose visually arresting...