From abortion to climate crisis, intimate experiences to planetary policy, reproduction presents urgent challenges today. This debate invites participants to stand back and take a long view.
The panellists, including the editors of the field-defining synthesis, Reproduction: Antiquity to the Present Day (Cambridge, 2018), will lead a discussion of when, how and for what purposes reproduction as we know it was made.
At one extreme, we could give reproduction a history that goes back to the evolution of life on earth. At the other, we might highlight the major changes of the decades after World War II, such as the pill and in vitro fertilization. But strong cases can be made for periods in between—for ancient Greek philosophers, medieval priests, Enlightenment savants and Malthusian couples—and this event will also consider their claims.
Panellists: Rebecca Flemming, Susan Golombok, Nick Hopwood, Lauren Kassell; Chair: Jim Secord
More information and bookings: https://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/when-was-reproduction-invented