Natality Toward a philosophy of birth

Yale University Press editor Banks's provocative debut explores what it might mean to center human experience in natality, the idea that birth "indelibly shape human life from beginning to end," rather than in mortality. Contending that "what people experience in birth... can shape their lives, deeply impact their societies, and even alter the course of history," Banks spotlights seven thinkers who "derived great meanings from birth." Philosopher Hannah Arendt, who coined the term natality, understood birth as symbolic of the "supreme capacity of man" to start over--a poignant observation given the Jewish philosopher's escape from 1930s Germany. "A different beginning was always possible," Arendt believed , including a "renewal of human dignity, freedom... and democracy." Novelist Toni Morrison, whose "entire oeuvre is framed by birth," believed "human birth... connects us, is part of what makes us whole beings," though her work is unsparing in its depiction of birth under "the most difficult and morally compromised circumstances." Banks highlights moments when her subjects' writings were in dialogue--for example, poet Adrienne Rich's critique of Arendt's The Human Condition--but largely builds those connections herself through unusual biographical juxtapositions, making for a layered, introspective study. This is an enlightening look at "what it means to be born human." (May)

A studied exploration of birth's myriad forms through the lens of the lives and work of seven poets, novelists, activists, and philosophers. Banks, a senior executive editor at Yale University Press, uses the word natality not according to its definition as birthright but rather as synonymous with birth and, as Hannah Arendt described it, the "miracle that saves the world." Banks breaks her debut book into portraits of Arendt, Friedrich Nietzsche, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, Sojourner Truth, Adrienne Rich, and Toni Morrison. Collectively, writes the author, "these are people wrestling with natality throughout their lives, exploring how their experiences with birth and their ideas about it shaped what they thought and how they lived." These seven people, Banks explains, "were all shaped by birth and they in turn have shaped our collective understanding of what it means to be born human. Birth helped them see how we are more than history's bi-products; we are instead creative participants in history, nature, and time." The author's contribution isn't providing new information about her subjects but rather illuminative, variable insights via her particular, occasionally amorphous lens. Regarding Morrison's switch to Catholicism at age 12, Banks writes, "Conversion involved baptism, a rebirth through the church's holy waters. It also entailed a renaming. Other people give us names at birth, but in a chosen rebirth we can name ourselves, as Sojourner Truth and Nietzsche did." The strongest sections concentrate on Arendt and Rich. Of the former's work, the author writes, "Birth taps into life's fresh and ever-running waters and is accessible to all people." Of the latter's, she delineates "a succession of brief, amazing movements, each pregnant with some tenacious, natal seed." Banks identifies Truth and Morrison as Black, which stands in contrast to the less common use of racial descriptors for her other (all White) subjects. This ambitious thesis will appeal to readers of thematically linked historical biographies. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.