The Palgrave handbook of infertility in history : approaches, contexts and perspectives
Gayle Davis (Editor), Tracey Loughran (Editor)
This ground-breaking, interdisciplinary volume provides an overdue assessment of how infertility has been understood, treated and experienced in different times and places. It brings together scholars from disciplines including history, literature, psychology, philosophy, and the social sciences to create the first large-scale review of recent research on the history of infertility. Through exploring an unparalleled range of chronological periods and geographical regions, it develops historical perspectives on an apparently transhistorical experience. It shows how experiences of infertility, access to treatment, and medical perspectives on this 'condition' have been mediated by social, political, and cultural discourses. The handbook reflects on and interrogates different approaches to the history of infertility, including the potential of cross-disciplinary perspectives and the uses of different kinds of historical source material, and includes lists of research resources to aid teachers and researchers. It is an essential 'go-to' point for anyone interested in infertility and its history
Handbook
1 online resource
9781137520807, 9781786847034, 1137520809, 1786847035
1003096728
Print version:
The Palgrave Handbook of Infertility in History; Acknowledgements; Contents; Abbreviations; List of Figures; List of Tables; Introduction: Infertility in History: Approaches, Contexts and Perspectives; Infertility in History; Defining Infertility in History; Silence, Stigma and Gaps in the Historical Record; Aims, Approaches and Agendas for Future Research; Medicine and Reproductive Technology; Kinship and the Family; Stratified Reproduction; Gender; Conclusion; Notes; Part I Defining the 'Problem': Perspectives on Infertility Introduction: Defining the 'Problem': Perspectives on InfertilityNotes; Great Expectations: Infertility, Disability, and Possibility; My Story; Infertility as Disease; Infertility as Story; Infertility as Disability; Infertility in Literature; Conclusion; Notes; Research Resources; Theoretical Works on Illness and Infertility; Infertility, Illness and Literature; Infertility and Disability; Whose Fault is it Anyway? Plant Infertility in Antiquity; Introduction; Human Infertility in the Ancient World; Plant Infertility and the Environment in Antiquity Plant Generation and Fertility in AntiquityWilderness and Cultivation; Conclusion; Notes; Research Resources; Primary Sources; Published Primary Sources; Secondary Sources; On Human Infertility in the Ancient World and its Treatment; On the Female Body in Antiquity, and its Comparison to a Field; On Ancient Botany, Fertility and Plants; From 'Fructification' to 'Insemination': Nomenclature and the Practice of Artificial Insemination; Introduction; J. Marion Sims and 'Artificial Fructification' in Reconstruction-Era America 'Baby Factories' and 'Artificial Fecundation' in Nineteenth-Century France'Test Tube Babies' and the Impact of Lay Language; Terminological Consensus: Defining Conception, Insemination, and the American Family; Conclusion; Notes; Research Resources; Primary Sources; Secondary Sources; Silences: Coping with Infertility in Nineteenth-Century Germany; Introduction; Perpetuating Silences, Reproducing Stigma? A Note on Methodology; Delineating Silences; Disclosure, Comfort, and Support; Autobiographical Representations of Childlessness; Conclusion; Notes; Research Resources; Primary Sources Secondary Sources Oral History and Women's Accounts of Infertility in Postwar England; Introduction; Methodology; Women's Reproductive Lives in Post-1945 Britain; Expressions of Powerlessness and Fatalism; The Role of Medical Science and Fertility Treatment; Medical Professionals and Medical Power; Conclusion; Notes; Research Resources; Primary Sources; Archival Sources; Published Primary Sources; Secondary Sources; Part II The Body Politic and the Infertile Body; Introduction: The Body Politic and the Infertile Body; Notes