The European Research Council funded project ‘Better Understanding the Metaphysics of Pregnancy’ (BUMP) is delighted to invite submissions for a conference to be held at King’s College London from Friday 25 to Sunday 27 of October 2024.

The BUMP project has been running since 2016, under the leadership of Professor Elselijn Kingma. Its aim was to launch the metaphysics of pregnancy as an important and fundamental area of philosophical research. This workshop will mark the conclusion of the project, and look towards the future.

The theme of the workshop is ‘The metaphysics of pregnancy and beyond’. The main focus of this workshop will be metaphysical or ontological questions related to pregnancy, parenthood and childbirth; however, we also invite submissions which engage with metaphysical or methodological questions through the lens of ethics, epistemology and feminist philosophy, or that investigate the social, political and ethical context and/or consequences of such metaphysical questions. We aim for this workshop to be a launching pad for future paths of research in the field of the metaphysics of pregnancy, with a specific view to identifying new questions or avenues of inquiry which remain unaddressed in the existing literature.

Speakers:

• Alexander Geddes: TBC
• Amber Griffioen: Keep your religion…inside my uterus?! (Or: Can trinitarian metaphysics help us better understand pregnancy?)
• Anne Sophie Mienke: TBC
• Arjun Devanesan: The mereology of pregnancy, according to the immune system
• Bartlomiej Swiatczak: Immunological view of foetal individuality
• Chris Oldfield: When Are Fosters Parts?
• Fiona Wollard: Intimate Entwinement In and After Pregnancy.
• Jola Vollmer: Thinking pregnancy as potentiality
• Jonathan Grose: Who's normal? Pregnancy, the BST and selected effects
• Margarida Hermida: Pregnancy as containment and parthood
• Megan Rawson: The Pregnant Corporation: Using the Metaphysics of Pregnancy to Frame New Ontological Perspectives on the Foster-Gravida ‘Group’
• Sibylle Leonard: Ethical and Legal Implications of Metaphysical Models of Pregnancy
• Xiaodong Wang: Re-ingestion of Childbirth Products and Its Potential Metaphysical Meanings

 

Schedule (please note that this is liable to change)

Thursday 24^th October: 18:00 Social TBC

Friday 25^th October:

River Room, King’s Building, Strand Campus

9:00 – 9:30 Coffee Available

9:30 – 9:45 Introduction and Welcomes

Session 1 Parthood, Containment & Process

9:45 – 10:40 Chris Oldfield: When Are Fosters Parts?

10:40 – 10:45 Mini Break

10:45 – 11:40 Margarida Hermida: Pregnancy as containment and parthood

11:40 – 11:50 Mini break

11:50 – 12:45 Anne Sophie Meincke: TBC

12:45 – 13:45 Lunch

Session 2 Alternative Metaphysical Approaches to Pregnancy

13:45 – 14:40 Megan Rawson: The Pregnant Corporation: Using the Metaphysics of Pregnancy to Frame New Ontological Perspectives on the Foster-Gravida ‘Group’

14:40– 14:45 Mini Break

14:45 – 15:40 Amber Griffioen: Keep your religion…inside my uterus?! (Or: Can trinitarian metaphysics help us better understand pregnancy?)

15:40 – 16:05 Coffee Break

16:05 – 17:00 Jola Vollmer: Thinking pregnancy as potentiality

17:00 Social

Saturday 26^th October:

Council Room, King’s Building, Strand Campus

9 – 9:30 Coffee Available

Session 3 Immonology & Individuality

9:30 – 10:25 Arjun Devanesan: The mereology of pregnancy, according to the immune system

10:25 – 10:35 Mini Break

10:35 – 11:30 Bartlomiej Swiatczak: Immunological view of foetal individuality

11:30 – 12:00 Coffee Break

12:00 – 12:55 Alex Geddes

12:55 – 14:00 Lunch

Session 4 Intersections with Ethics, Philosophy of Medicine & Race

14:00 – 14:55 Sibylle Léonard: Ethical and Legal Implications of Metaphysical Models of Pregnancy

14:55 – 15:25 Coffee Break

15:25 – 16:20 Michael Diamond Hunter: How overlooking and undervaluing The Metaphysics of Pregnancy has hindered developments in the philosophy of race.

16:20 – 16:30 Break

16:30 – 17:25 Jonathon Grose: Who's normal? Pregnancy, the BST and selected effects

18:00 Drinks reception at KCL in the Sommerset Room

Sunday 27^th October:

Council Room, King’s Building, Strand Campus

9 – 9:30 Coffee Available

Session 5 Pregnancy, Birth & After (or Beyond)

9:30 – 10:25 Fiona Woollard: Intimate Entwinement In and After Pregnancy

10:25 – 10:40 Break

10:40 – 11:35 Xiaodong Wang: Re-ingestion of Childbirth Products and Its Potential Metaphysical Meanings

11:35 – 12:00 Break

12:00 – 13:00 Elselijn Kingma

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch and closing

You will also be able to join this event  online.