Disciplining Reproduction: Modernity, American Life Sciences, and "the Problems of Sex"Reproductive issues from sex and contraception to abortion and cloning have been controversial for centuries, and scientists who attempted to turn the study of reproduction into a discipline faced an uphill struggle. Adele Clarke's engrossing story of the search for reproductive knowledge across the twentieth century is colorful and fraught with conflict. Modern scientific study of reproduction, human and animal, began in the United States in an overlapping triad of fields: biology, medicine, and agriculture. Clarke traces the complicated paths through which physiological approaches to reproduction led to endocrinological approaches, creating along the way new technoscientific products from contraceptives to hormone therapies to new modes of assisted conception--for both humans and animals. She focuses on the changing relations and often uneasy collaborations among scientists and the key social worlds most interested in their work--major philanthropists and a wide array of feminist and medical birth control and eugenics advocates--and recounts vividly how the reproductive sciences slowly acquired standing. By the 1960s, reproduction was disciplined, and the young and contested scientific enterprise proved remarkably successful at attracting private funding and support. But the controversies continue as women--the targeted consumers--create their own reproductive agendas around the world. Elucidating the deep cultural tensions that have permeated reproductive topics historically and in the present, Disciplining Reproduction gets to the heart of the twentieth century's drive to rationalize reproduction, human and nonhuman, in order to control life itself. Reproductive issues from sex and contraception to abortion and cloning have been controversial for centuries, and scientists who attempted to turn the study of reproduction into a discipline faced an uphill struggle. Adele Clarke's engrossing story of the search for reproductive knowledge across the twentieth century is colorful and fraught with conflict. Modern scientific study of reproduction, human and animal, began in the United States in an overlapping triad of fields: biology, medicine, and agriculture. Clarke traces the complicated paths through which physiological approaches to reproduction led to endocrinological approaches, creating along the way new technoscientific products from contraceptives to hormone therapies to new modes of assisted conception--for both humans and animals. She focuses on the changing relations and often uneasy collaborations among scientists and the key social worlds most interested in their work--major philanthropists and a wide array of feminist and medical birth control and eugenics advocates--and recounts vividly how the reproductive sciences slowly acquired standing. By the 1960s, reproduction was disciplined, and the young and contested scientific enterprise proved remarkably successful at attracting private funding and support. But the controversies continue as women--the targeted consumers--create their own reproductive agendas around the world. Elucidating the deep cultural tensions that have permeated reproductive topics historically and in the present, Disciplining Reproduction gets to the heart of the twentieth century's drive to rationalize reproduction, human and nonhuman, in order to control life itself. |
Contents
Framing the American Reproductive Sciences | 3 |
Situating the Reproductive Sciences | 30 |
Physiological Approaches 191025 | 63 |
The NRC Committee | 90 |
Endocrinological Approaches 192540 | 121 |
Reproducing Controversy | 233 |
METHODOLOGICAL NOTE | 277 |
333 | |
Other editions - View all
Disciplining Reproduction: Modernity, American Life Sciences, and the ... Adele E. Clarke Limited preview - 2022 |
Disciplining Reproduction: Modernity, American Life Sciences, and the ... Adele E. Clarke Limited preview - 2024 |
Disciplining Reproduction: Modernity, American Life Sciences, and the ... Adele E. Clarke Limited preview - 2022 |
Common terms and phrases
Aberle and Corner Academy agricultural Allen Anatomy animal arena Association basic research biologists biology birth control birth control advocates birth control movement Borell boundaries BSH SIII-2 B7 Cambridge Carnegie centers Clarke clinical Cole contraceptive research controversial cycle discipline Embryology ences estrogen estrus cycle eugenicists eugenics Experimental feminist Fertility focused freemartin Geison gender genetics Greep Gregory Pincus gynecology Hartman History human illegitimacy Institute Internal Secretions Johns Hopkins laboratory legitimacy Lillie Lillie's Maienschein major male Margaret Sanger means of contraception Medical Medicine modern NCMH neo-Malthusian NRC/CRPS Obstetrics organization Perspectives physicians physiology Pincus population control Problems of Sex production professional RAC BSH SIII-2 RAC RF RG1.1 repro reproductive endocrinology reproductive research reproductive sciences reproductive scientists Rockefeller Foundation Sanger scientific Sex and Internal sex research sexology sexuality shift social worlds Society sperm spermicides sponsored sterilization studies technoscientific tion tive Trevor Pinch University Press women Women's Health Yerkes York