Slavery and Surrogacy with Alys Weinbaum

Alys Weinbaum, professor of English at the University of Washington, discusses her book, The Afterlife of Reproductive Slavery. Professr Weinbaum examines how the legal and cultural impact of Atlantic slavery defined slave reproduction and enslaved women as “biocapital.” This form of racialized capitalism changed human reproduction from kinship to “breeding.” How this ideology remains four centuries later in the emerging markets for female egg harvesting to the multimillion dollar international industry of surrogacy is explored. Wrapping up the conversation with a brief discussion of Toni Morrison’s “Beloved.”