Dr Petra Bueskens

Position: Senior Honorary Research Fellow
Study area: Social theory, political philosophy, women’s history, motherhood, contemporary cultural politics
Email: petra.bueskens@federation.edu.au
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8581-4366

Qualifications

Doctor of Philosophy - University of Melbourne – 2014
Bachelor of Arts, first class honours, Murdoch University - 1998

Biography

Petra Bueskens, PhD is the author of Modern Motherhood and Women's Dual Identities (Routledge, 2018). She is the editor of four anthologies including Australian Mothering (with Carla Pascoe-Leahy), Heterodox Feminism, Mothering and Psychoanalysis and Nancy Chodorow and the Reproduction of Mothering as well as numerous chapters, articles and op-eds on motherhood, social and political theory and contemporary cultural politics.

Areas of expertise

Social theory, political philosophy (classical and contemporary liberalism), first and second wave feminism, motherhood and motherhood studies, psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, contemporary cultural politics.

Research interests

  • Heterodox feminism and the contemporary culture wars around the ‘category of woman’
  • Motherhood studies – women’s roles in the home and in civil society, childbirth – and the politics of, mothering, the ethic of care in relation to the ethic of justice,.
  • Classical and contemporary liberalism, the social and sexual contracts, democracy, the decline of civil liberties.

Supervision

Accepting proposal in areas of expertise and interest.

Publications

Books

Bueskens, P. Modern Motherhood and Women's Dual Identities: Rewriting the Sexual Contract. 1 ed. Routledge - Taylor & Francis, 2018. doi:10.4324/9781315559520

Subject Woman – forthcoming, Polity 2025.

Heterodox Feminism: New Debates on the Frontier of Culture (forthcoming, Zer0 Books, 2024).

Nancy Chodorow and the Reproduction of Mothering: Forty Years On. 1 ed. Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-55590-0

Bueskens, P. Mothering and Psychoanalysis: Clinical, Sociological and Feminist Perspectives. 1 ed. Demeter Press, 2014.

Book reviews

Lundquist, C. (2024). Nancy Chodorow and “The Reproduction of Mothering”: Forty Years On, by Petra Bueskens, ed.. Simone de Beauvoir Studies, 34(1), 162-169. https://doi.org/10.1163/25897616-bja10080

Walsh, M. B. (2023). Modern Motherhood and Women’s Dual Identities: Rewriting the Sexual Contract. Petra Bueskens, New York: Routledge, 2018 (ISBN 978-1-138-67742-5). Hypatia, 38(2), e17. doi:10.1017/hyp.2022.29

Greenhalgh, C. (2022). Australian Mothering: Historical and Sociological Perspectives: Edited by Carla Pascoe Leahy and Petra Bueskens. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Pp. 498. €69.99 paper. Australian Historical Studies, 53(3), 510–511. https://doi.org/10.1080/1031461X.2022.2079205

Philipson, I. (2020). Modern Motherhood and Women’s Dual Identities. Book review. Psychoanalysis Culture & Society 25, 128–133. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41282-019-00147-3

Stephens, J., (2019) “Review of Modern Motherhood and Women’s Dual Identities: Rewriting the Sexual Contract”, Studies in the Maternal 11(1), 10. doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/sim.280

Thomas, M. (2019). Book review.  Modern Motherhood and Women’s Dual Identities: Rewriting the Sexual Contract. Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, 3(1-2), 17. https://doi.org/10.20897/femenc/5923

Brock, S., (2018). "Revolving Maternal Identities". Petra Bueskens. Modern Motherhood and Women's Dual Identities: Rewriting the Sexual Contract, Australian Women’s Book Review, 28(1), 29-37.

Kellond, J. (2015). BOOK REVIEW: MOTHERING AND PSYCHOANALYSIS: CLINICAL, SOCIOLOGICAL AND FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES. Free Associations, (68), 64–70. https://doi.org/10.1234/fa.v0i68.129

de Clifford, A. (2015). Book Review for Petra Bueskens (ed.) Mothering & Psychoanalysis: Clinical, Sociological and Feminist Perspectives. Psychotherapy and Counselling Journal of Australia, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.59158/001c.71155

Book chapters

Bueskens, P. (2025) "The Sexual Contract and Sexual Difference: Mothers and Others”. Scholar’s Handbook of Philosophies of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Mothering, edited by Lundquist, Caroline., and Le Chance Adams, Sarah, Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming.

Bueskens, Petra. (2024). ‘The Category of Woman and its Discontents’. In Heterodox Feminism: Contemporary Debates at the Frontier of Culture, ed. Petra Bueskens, Zer0 Books (forthcoming).

Bueskens, P. "The New Sexual Contract: One Step Forward and Two Steps Back". Maternal Theory: Essential Readings, edited by O’Reilly, Andrea., 2 ed., Demeter Press, 2021, pp. 533-554. doi:10.2307/j.ctv1s2t0hn.37

Pascoe Leahy, C, and Bueskens, P. "Contextualising Australian Mothers, Mothering and Motherhood". Australian Mothers: Historical and Sociological Perspectives, edited by Pascoe Leahy, Carla, and Bueskens, Petra., First ed., Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, pp. 3-20. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-20267-5_1

Bueskens, P. and Pascoe Leahy, C. (2019). Defining Maternal Studies in Australia: The Birth of a Field. In: Pascoe Leahy, C., Bueskens, P. (eds) Australian Mothering. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20267-5_2

Bueskens, P. (2019). ‘Gillard’s Dilemma’, The Sexual Contract and Maternal Citizenship: The Case of Australian Single Mothers. In: Pascoe Leahy, C., Bueskens, P. (eds) Australian Mothering. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20267-5_20

Bueskens, P. (2018). "Maternal Subjectivity: From Containing to Creating". Dangerous Ideas about Mothers, edited by Robertson, R, and Nelson, C., 1 ed., UWA Publishing, pp. 197-210.

Bueskens, P, and Toffoletti, K. (2018). "Mothers, scholars and feminists Inside and outside the Australian academic system". LIVED EXPERIENCES OF WOMEN IN ACADEMIA: METAPHORS, MANIFESTOS AND MEMOIR, edited by Black, AL, and Garvis, S., 1 ed., ROUTLEDGE, pp. 13-22.

Bueskens, Petra. (2015). ‘Breastfeeding in Public: A Personal and Political Memoir’. In Mothers at the Margins: Stories of Challenge, Resistance and Love, ed. Lisa Raith, Jenny Jones and Marie Porter. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 204–224.

Refereed journal articles

Bueskens, P. (2023). ‘Mummy was Busy’: Leunig’s Cartoon, Smart Phone Addiction and the Loss of Transitional Space in Contemporary Culture. Australasian Journal of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, 40(1-2), pp. 11-40.

Bueskens, P. (2020). Mothers Reproducing the Social: Chodorow and Beyond. Journal of Psychosocial Studies, 13(1), pp. 65-86. doi:10.1332/147867320X15803493144767

Bueskens, Petra. (2020) "Germaine Greer’s On Rape Reconsidered". Hecate, 45(1-2) pp. 267-288.

Bueskens, Petra. (2019). ‘Modern Mothers’ Dual Identities and the New Sexual Contract’. Journal of the Motherhood Initiative 10 (1 & 2), pp. 59-82.

Associations

Maternal Scholars, Australia – current President

Heterodox Academy, Australia - member

Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia, full clinical member