Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference 14-17th December 2016 Program Index

Kinneret Lahad & Karen Hvidtfeldt*
Mother”
“Like Having New Batteries Installed!” – the Category of the “Forty-Plus
In recent years, the phenomenon of 40+ mothers has generated much media attention in Denmark; 40+
mothers are regularly labelled as ridiculous, bad or irresponsible, and their right to access assisted
reproduction technology is restricted and questioned. In our paper this rhetoric is explored within the
particular context of the welfare state, which often takes pride in being family-friendly and liberal in terms of
its gender policies. This paper analyzes these debates and argues that the category of old mother is an
ideological discourse that identify feminine aging with decline and emptiness. Drawing on feminist age
studies, these media representations are considered here as a manifestation of middle ageism, in which 40+
mothers undergo a process of accelerated aging as they fail to act their age. The paper is situated within
social and feminist studies of time that aim to challenge normative reproductive temporalities and the
ideology of aging as decline. The analysis traces emerging discourses and discusses some of the alternatives
they raise, e.g. if the category of 40+ mothers opens new rhythmic options for reproductive time and for
heteronormative life course paradigms more generally.
Katherine Carroll* & Charlotte Kroløkke*
through egg freezing
Banking on love: Enacting “responsible” reproductive citizenship
The promise of egg freezing for women’s fertility preservation has entered feminist debate in connection
with medical and commercial control over, and emancipation from biological restrictions of reproduction.
This paper draws on semi-structured interview data with sixteen egg freezers from the mid-west and east
coast regions of the United States of America. Rather than freezing to balance career and “have it all”, the
women in this cohort were largely “freezing for love” and in the hopes of having a “healthy baby,”
deconstructing notions of reproductive aging in the process. This finding extends upon feminist debate and
challenges existing bioethical concerns about egg freezing by drawing on egg freezers own voices and the
neoliberal positioning of the reproductive body. Together, they cast egg freezing as neither liberation nor
oppression or financial exploitation, but rather, as an enactment of “responsible” reproductive citizenship, a
reinforcement of compulsory coupledom and the genetic relatedness of offspring.
8L The secular, the radical, the voice and the curriculum: Historical legacies and immanent felt encounters in
Australasian educational institutions (Chair, Eve Mayes)
This session explores the movements of concepts including the secular, the radical, voice, and curriculum in
Australian and Australasian educational institutions. These concepts do not pre-exist or prescribe felt relations; these
concepts shift and change over time, with material consequences for human bodies. Each of these papers addresses
particular historical legacies and immanent felt encounters in educational institutions, and are transversally
connected by attention to present intersectional injustices. These three papers are theoretically and
methodologically pluralist – drawing from poststructural and critical race theories, cultural political theories of affect
and emotion, and radical democratic theories.
Remy Low
Terror, religion, nation: A genealogy of the secular principle in Australian schooling
Religious schooling and debate about its merits have shown sustained growth in Australia since the mid-
1990s. The debate has been framed by recent attention to the visibility of religion in our ostensibly secularliberal
nation. The spectacle of terrorist acts attributed to religious zealotry is a powerful influence in these
discussions. The conjunction of the geopolitical climate and the local debate came to a head in the 2007–09
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