Central to this book are Gbigbil women's experiences with different "reproductive interruptions": miscarriages, stillbirths, child deaths, induced abortions, and infertility. Rather than consider these events as inherently dissimilar as women do in Western countries, the Gbigbil women of eastern Cameroon see them all as instances of "wasted wombs" that leave their reproductive trajectories hanging in the balance. The women must navigate this uncertainty while negotiating their social positions, aspirations for the future, and the current workings of their bodies. Providing an intimate look into these processes, Wasted Wombs shows how Gbigbil women constantly shift their interpretations of when a pregnancy starts, what it contains, and what is lost in case of a reproductive interruption, in contrast to Western conceptions of fertility and loss. Depending on the context and on their life aspirations—be it marriage and motherhood, or an educational trajectory and employment, or profitable sexual affairs with so-called "big fish"—women negotiate and manipulate the meanings and effects of reproductive interruptions. Paradoxically, they often do so while portraying themselves as powerless. Wasted Wombs carefully analyzes such tactics in relation to the various social predicaments that emerge around reproductive interruptions, as well as the capricious workings of women's physical bodies.

In Jesus in Our Wombs, Rebecca J. Lester takes us behind the walls of a Roman Catholic convent in central Mexico to explore the lives, training, and experiences of a group of postulants--young women in the first stage of religious training as nuns. Lester, who conducted eighteen months of fieldwork in the convent, provides a rich ethnography of these young women's journeys as they wrestle with doubts, fears, ambitions, and setbacks in their struggle to follow what they believe to be the will of God. Gracefully written, finely textured, and theoretically rigorous, this book considers how these aspiring nuns learn to experience God by cultivating an altered experience of their own female bodies, a transformation they view as a political stance against modernity. Lester explains that the Postulants work toward what they see as an "authentic" femininity--one that has been eclipsed by the values of modern society. The outcome of this process has political as well as personal consequences. The Sisters learn to understand their very intimate experiences of "the Call"--and their choices in answering it--as politically relevant declarations of self. Readers become intimately acquainted with the personalities, family backgrounds, friendships, and aspirations of the Postulants as Lester relates the practices and experiences of their daily lives. Combining compassionate, engaged ethnography with an incisive and provocative theoretical analysis of embodied selves, Jesus in Our Wombs delivers a profound analysis of what Lester calls the convent's "technology of embodiment" on multiple levels--from the phenomenological to the political.

With 'Theology from the Womb of Asia', Song continues to demonstrate that he is one of the most creative and important theologians of our time. He forces us to expand the horizons of our theological vision, not only by drawing on the resources of Asian thought and experience, but also by insisting that we do theology with passion. Here he offers images, fables, poems, parables, and visions, woven together with his own compelling prose. The biblical stories with which we thought we were familiar become new and more compelling stories when we revisit them with this able and wise guide. And our whole approach to life and living is transformed by the freshness he breathes into all that he surveys with us. --Robert McAfee Brown, Professor Emeritus of Theology and Ethics, Pacific School of Religion In 'Theology from the Womb of Asia', C. S. Song shows how the story of God's compassion in Jesus and the many heartrending stories and poems of the Asian people are reaching out towards each other. Doing theology in this perspective is not a matter of application of doctrine, but of recognition of a relation between the suffering God and suffering humanity, which transcends many artificial and alienating distinctions. The book is an appeal to Asian theologians, but at the same time a necessary challenge to a Western academic theology and missionary thinking. --Bert Hoedemaker, Professor of Missions and Christian Ethics, University of Groningen, the Netherlands A splendid example of doing theology with Asian resources. A breath of fresh air to liven up traditional theology, using original reflections and observations with the backing of close knowledge of traditional theology. A book no theological college can do without. --Yeow Choo Lak, The South East Asia Graduate School of Theology, Singapore C. S. Song is Professor of Theology and Asian Cultures at Pacific School of Religion. His recent publications include 'The Believing Heart'.

An in-depth book about twenty-six-year-old Tony Lester's preventable suicide and how he struggled to be recognized as a special needs person from the time he was arrested to the time he died. Real case documentation that has been validated by internal reports and inspections. This book will make you think about the role the criminal justice system plays with those seriously mentally ill and experiencing coping and functional difficulties. No political slandering here; just the facts as they were reported by KPNX investigative reporter Wendy Halloran and myself and how the family sought help in exposing the wrongful death of their son, nephew, leaving behind a young girl left without her father ever coming home to her. This book comprehensively covers the police report, the rule 11 procedures, and the investigation into his death. Also included are excerpts from the ACLU findings and how they applied to Tony's personal crises and how his needs were downplayed due to cultural beliefs inmates are manipulators and always have a motive, thus they are liars and unworthy of trust or care for their problems. Based on the same dynamics found by the ACLU experts, this reveals the shoddy work of the state's medical and psychiatric care standards applied in ad hoc conditions because of lack of commitment, resources, staffing, and training. Tony experienced the perfect storm when he was incarcerated and died in less than four months of doing time. An exclusive peek at a crisis situation still simmering inside the department of corrections systems that has failed him and thousands of others. It shows how his treatment needs were ignored as well as his pleas unheeded resulting in his death and how they compare to today's findings still broken and still not fixed. This book is an in-depth detailed layout of the culture, the practices, the deliberate indifferences toward the mentally ill and how mentally ill persons are victimized and criminalized by political and criminal justice approaches and dynamics toward the seriously ill persons and how they must deal with the stigmas and discrimination of being a mentally ill person inside Arizona prisons. Dynamics include sociopolitical ramifications for being incarcerated, suicide watch culture, adequate care and treatment, security attitudes toward these special needs persons, and much more. Real case scenarios listed from the ACLU class action lawsuit that resembles or duplicates Tony's plight, frustration, and situations that ended his life. This book illustrates shoddy death investigations, marginalized attitudes about human values in prison and other cultural influences that dictate how prisons are run, prisoners are mistreated and even some darkness on solitary confinement in the detention units and max custody facilities. A real wakeup call for many who have family members in prison and others wanting to change prison conditions. Included are the family's frustrations with an agency which boasts the best defense of keeping secrets behind closed doors and the struggle KPNX and Wendy Halloran went through to get the secret video. All in all, it is an in-depth account of how a wrongful death leaves people devastated and asking the most frequent question: why? When you read this book you will see the root of causes. After you read this book, you will understand the agony and despair a mentally ill person endures when they are labeled, ignored, or ridiculed by the system that is supposedly protect them.

Where pregnancy is concerned, let every pregnancy be for everyone. Let us overthrow, in short, the “family” The surrogacy industry is estimated to be worth over $1 billion a year, and many of its surrogates around the world work in terrible conditions—deception, wage-stealing and money skimming are rife; adequate medical care is horrifyingly absent; and informed consent is depressingly rare. In Full Surrogacy Now, Sophie Lewis brings a fresh and unique perspective to the topic. Often, we think of surrogacy as the problem, but, Full Surrogacy Now argues, we need more surrogacy, not less! Rather than looking at surrogacy through a legal lens, Lewis argues that the needs and protection of surrogates should be put front and center. Their relationship to the babies they gestate must be rethought, as part of a move to recognize that reproduction is productive work. Only then can we begin to break down our assumptions that children “belong” to those whose genetics they share. Taking collective responsibility for children would radically transform our notions of kinship, helping us to see that it always takes a village to make a baby.

This book tells the real-life horror story of states' abusing laws and infringing on rights to police women and their pregnancies.

Why would a talented young woman enter into a torrid affair with hunger, drugs, sex, and death? Through five lengthy hospital stays, endless therapy, and the loss of family, friends, jobs, and all sense of what it means to be "normal," Marya Hornbacher lovingly embraced her anorexia and bulimia -- until a particularly horrifying bout with the disease in college put the romance of wasting away to rest forever. A vivid, honest, and emotionally wrenching memoir, Wasted is the story of one woman's travels to reality's darker side -- and her decision to find her way back on her own terms.

Since it was first published in Hebrew in 2000, this provocative book has been garnering acclaim and stirring controversy for its bold reinterpretation of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity in the Middle Ages, especially in medieval Europe. Looking at a remarkably wide array of source material, Israel Jacob Yuval argues that the inter-religious polemic between Judaism and Christianity served as a substantial component in the mutual formation of each of the two religions. He investigates ancient Jewish Passover rituals; Jewish martyrs in the Rhineland who in 1096 killed their own children; Christian perceptions of those ritual killings; and events of the year 1240, when Jews in northern France and Germany expected the Messiah to arrive. Looking below the surface of these key moments, Yuval finds that, among other things, the impact of Christianity on Talmudic and medieval Judaism was much stronger than previously assumed and that a "rejection of Christianity" became a focal point of early Jewish identity. Two Nations in Your Womb will reshape our understanding of Jewish and Christian life in late antiquity and over the centuries.

A love story of both fact and fiction threatened jealousy and envy. Torn apart by infidelity and brought back together by love and divine timing.