What’s Literature Got to Do with It? How Literature Shapes Our View of Reproductive Technology

Posted on by Zindzi CresswellSharon RustonGeorgia Walton

Pregnant woman reading a book, in nature

What’s Literature Got to Do with It? How Literature Shapes Our View of Reproductive Technology

Discussed by Sharon Ruston and Georgia Walton 

Organised by Zindzi Cresswell  

This work has been supported by the Future of Human Reproduction Programme, which has been funded by the Wellcome Trust under grant reference 222858/Z/21/Z.

Please note that this transcript has been edited for clarity and structure, while maintaining the tone and language of the original auto-generated content from the Teams webinar. It can be read alongside the related recording.

Contents

​​Welcome and outline 

Future of Human Reproduction Research Themes

Activities of the Future of Human Reproduction Literature Strand in the Research Project 

What books have the Future of Human Reproduction team read as part of this research? 

Why is literature useful to this research project? 

What perspectives do literary experts bring to the Future of Human Reproduction project? 

Why is literature good for the topic we are exploring? 

What social, legal and ethical issues has literature helped raise for the Future of Human Reproduction project? 

What are the challenges of interdisciplinary working? 

Open questions from the audience 

​

Welcome and outline

Sharon Ruston:

Hello everybody, and welcome. My name is Sharon Ruston, and I'm a Co-Investigator on the Future of Human Reproduction project and the Literature Strand Lead within it. Thank you for joining us for today's webinar, What’s Literature Got to Do with It? How Literature Shapes Our View of Reproductive Technology. We have Zindzi to thank for the Tina Turner reference in the title (What’s Love Got to Do with It) and I hope that song will be with you for the rest of the day, as it has been with me.

The webinar will last approximately 45 to 60 minutes and we're going to begin shortly, we’ll aim to finish on time so you can get on with your day. We should mention that this webinar was made possible with funding from the Wellcome Trust. Before we begin, just a couple of reminders: This webinar is being recorded, and a recording will be shared after the event. Participant microphones and cameras are turned off, but you can use the chat and Q&A functions. Please do comment and ask questions. Zindzi is going to be monitoring the chat, so please don’t be shy—we’d love to hear from you, we’d like to feel as if we’re talking to someone. There will be a dedicated Q&A session after Georgia and I have had a quick chat. You can ask questions in the chat or Q&A at any time, and we’ll come to them after our conversation.

I’m Sharon Ruston, a Professor of English Literature at Lancaster University. I’ve been a professor for 17 years, 12 of those at Lancaster. My research interests focus on the relationships between literature, science, and medicine. My most recent book was The Science of Life and Death in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a novel that features quite an amazing technology of reproduction—albeit not one I hope we’ll be investigating anytime soon. I’ve just finished a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, which involved crowdsourced transcriptions of 19th-century chemist notebooks—those of Humphry Davy, famous for the Davy lamp. Davy wrote poetry in his notebooks alongside his chemical experiments, and I’m particularly interested in him because he was a great inspiration for Shelley’s character, Victor Frankenstein. So, it all seems to come back to that for me.

Georgia, would you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Georgia Walton:

So, I’m Georgia Walton, a Research Associate in English Literature on the Future of Human Reproduction project. I specialise in American literature and culture from the 19th century to the present. Broadly, I’m interested in thinking about embodiment and sensation, and how literature imagines the future—whether directly or indirectly through things like utopian imagination. I also look at the relationship between technological change and representation, for example, how the novel form might evolve in relation to technological development.

I’m currently writing a monograph based on my doctoral research, called 19th Century Legacies and Contemporary U.S. Literature: The New American Renaissance, which will be published by Edinburgh University Press. And it’s been lovely to work with Sharon over the last 18 months or so—I think it's been that long now, right?

Sharon Ruston:

Yes, it’s been fantastic working together on this project. The Future of Human Reproduction project has developed new methods, research agendas, and interdisciplinary ways of working to tackle the conceptual and ethical implications of a range of future reproductive scenarios. Some of these are already technologically possible or will be very soon.

Georgia, could you tell us about the different technologies we’ve been focusing on?

Future of Human Reproduction Research Themes

Georgia Walton:

Of course. The project focuses on three key technologies. The first is ectogenesis, sometimes called ectogestation or extracorporeal gestation. This refers to artificial womb technology, which is a more lay understanding of the science behind it. There are several teams working on platforms based on this idea around the world. Most notably, in 2017, a team of scientists in Philadelphia at Children’s Hospital announced the development of the BIOBAG, a technology that closely reproduces the conditions of the womb.

This team has successfully gestated lamb fetuses for four weeks and is now seeking approval for human trials. As it’s being developed, this technology is intended to improve neonatal care for premature infants, but people also speculate about its broader potential to radically change the way we think about pregnancy.

The second technology we’re looking at is In Vitro Derived Gametes (IVG), which refers to egg and sperm cells created in a lab by transforming or reprogramming other cells, like stem cells or skin cells, into egg and sperm cells. These altered cells can then be used to create embryos.

The possibilities for this technology are vast. One key potential application is that it could allow same-sex couples to have children who are genetically related to both partners. It could also allow transgender women to produce eggs and transgender men to contribute sperm. This technology might also extend the reproductive age of women and could even lead to multiplex genetic parenting, where a child has more than two genetic parents.

The third technology we focus on is genome editing, which enables scientists to alter DNA. A major breakthrough came in 2012 with the introduction of CRISPR-Cas9, a technology that allows precise snipping and editing of DNA. This could eventually lead to the ability to remove genes that cause inheritable diseases and other genetic conditions.

Activities of the Future of Human Reproduction Literature Strand in the Research Project

Sharon Ruston:

Thank you, Georgia. Mind-blowing stuff, really. We’ve both learned a lot during this time about the science behind these technologies and what’s currently being done. It’s all been quite amazing to discover.

So, what we've been doing—Georgia and I, and the rest of the team—is that we realised very early on that the group has a shared love of reading. That became a bridge for us, and so we’ve been meeting regularly to discuss books. We’ve looked at novels, literary theory, short stories, and excerpts from books, especially from the late 19th century to today, that have some relation to the project’s topics.

Georgia and I would set questions in advance, asking people to think about the texts in relation to their specific disciplines and the subjects we were discussing. We’re a project that has contributions from nine different disciplines, I think. We have lawyers, child psychologists, linguists, philosophers, biosciences experts, and speculative design, among others.

It’s kind of like the best class you could ever run at university—because everyone has read the material you asked them to, they’ve done the work in advance, and you have a really good conversation with some of the best people in their field. It’s both really intimidating and very rewarding. I’ve really enjoyed it.

Georgia Walton:

Yeah, and it’s maybe a bit better than university classes sometimes, where students might not have read all the texts or done all the work in advance. It’s been really lovely to have these discussions. We’ve regularly met for these sessions, and we’ve also had an online symposium where external speakers came to discuss literature and reproductive technologies. We invited English literature scholars to run workshops for us as well. For example, Claire Barker came from Leeds to do a session on disability studies. Sarah Womack did a session on late 19th-century stories. And recently, Christie Oliver Hobley came to discuss John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos.

We’ve also had some collaborators from English literature: Jerome De Groot and Keisha Thompson put on a play called The Bell Curves in Manchester, about genetic modification. Anna McFarlane, who is now at (the University of ) Glasgow, gave a talk and workshop on her latest research, and we also hosted a conference on reproduction and speculative cultures.

We’ve attended each other’s conferences too, I took the (research) group to the British Society of Literature and Science Conference in Birmingham, and this year, we have two panels at the same conference, which is being held in Lancaster.

And I think the culmination of our work will be a topical collection for the BMJ Medical Humanities journal, where everyone is thinking about a literary text or a textbook in relation to language, among other aspects. We have collaborated with others on this as well; I’m writing an article with a lawyer about a novel, Steve Wilkinson (a philosopher) is writing with Kirsty Dunn (a child psychologist), Nicola Williams (another philosopher) is writing with Laura O’Donovan (another lawyer), and we have other combinations and collaborations happening.

What books have the Future of Human Reproduction team read as part of this research?

Sharon Ruston:

That’s right. So, Georgia, could you talk a bit about the kinds of books we’ve read along the way?

Georgia Walton:

Yeah, I think we’ve mostly focused on novels. We did aim to look at some poetry, but that hasn’t quite happened yet. Initially, we read novels that dealt more directly with these technologies—where the authors were inspired by current technological developments and thought about what their implications might be for the future. Some examples of these novels include Before the Start of Time by Anne Chan and The Growing Season by Helen Sedgwick.

But more recently, we’ve moved a bit away from that and started reading books that are more tangential to the subject. For instance, Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy imagines gene editing—but it’s gene editing by aliens, so it’s quite far from what we think could happen. We also read Maggie Nelson’s memoir The Argonauts, which doesn’t focus on technology directly, but it explores different forms of families, queer families, and queering motherhood and parenthood.

Sharon Ruston:

There have been so many books, and even though we've covered a lot, there are still so many more we could read. It’s always hard to fit everything in, and it’s going to be a bit sad if we don’t manage to cover it all.

Why is literature useful to this research project?

Sharon Ruston:

So, Georgia, why do you think literature has been so useful for this project?

Georgia Walton:

I think, as you touched on earlier, the main thing is bringing lots of people together and using literature as a discussion tool. Novels are great because they have so many different layers—they speak to emotions, politics, social systems, relational dynamics. So there’s always something for someone’s area of expertise to latch onto. They create a common language and provide a route through these technologies.

If I had to pick a particular book that I think is really useful for this, I’d say Margaret Atwood’s Madd Adam trilogy. It’s such a rich, developed world, and it shows all the different layers of society and how they operate, so it’s been really useful.

What about you, Sharon? What were your favourite sessions?

Sharon Ruston:

Yeah, I think it’s been really great because even with a novel, or sometimes films—which we haven’t mentioned yet—when everyone has read the text, people all have opinions about it. Even if they didn’t enjoy it, that’s still useful to discuss. So, I think one of my favourite sessions was early on, when we read Helen Sedgwick’s The Growing Season. Just because it really thought through the practicalities of artificial wombs, or whatever term you prefer, it imagined them as pouches that people would wear. It really pictured a world where that was the norm. It had something for everyone—it covered the ideal environment for the foetus, for example. And Kirsty (Dunn), who’s our lecturer in child psychology, found it particularly relevant. But it also had implications for law, and many other fields.

I really enjoyed it because I split everyone into two groups, and they had to come up with arguments for and against the idea of the pouch being a good or bad thing. It was a lot of fun, with people moving between each other, arguing against one another. It’s always a great moment when people stop just answering the tutor’s questions and start responding to each other. That’s when you know you’ve done a good job—and it happened in that session, as well as in others.

Georgia Walton:

Yeah, I think the session on Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts was really great. Even though it didn’t directly deal with technology, it sparked many different issues, so people could bring in a variety of perspectives. For me, I particularly liked it because the book is so engaged with literary theory, which provided a nice way of incorporating that aspect into the discussion. I also really enjoyed Christie's (Oliver Hobley) session on The Midwich Cuckoos.

Sharon Ruston:

Yeah.

Georgia Walton:

I think it was even more enjoyable because we opened it up to people outside of our group, so we got some fresh perspectives. It was nice for everyone to share what we’ve been learning, but also hear from people who weren’t directly involved.

Sharon Ruston:

Yeah, and it’s just a joy, isn’t it? It’s a privilege and a joy to sit and talk about a book like that.

Georgia Walton:

Definitely.

What perspectives do literary experts bring to the Future of Human Reproduction project?

Sharon Ruston:

What specific perspectives do you think we, as literary experts, bring to the project?

Georgia Walton:

I think literature, and cultural studies more broadly, are really good at showing how narrative patterns function across society, and how they might lead to the development of certain technologies. We talk a lot in the project about how the public might respond to these technologies and how to navigate that resistance. A lot of it is about preparing people for technologies that they might initially resist. Because literary studies often looks at the historical context and traces patterns, it helps us understand how narratives around technology develop and how they shape the future of these technologies. If we had a different narrative, perhaps certain technologies wouldn’t have been developed in the way they have. For me, that’s one of the things literature brings to the project.

Sharon Ruston:

Yes, so I suppose for me, I’m one of those old-fashioned historical literary types, one thing that’s been eye-opening is showing people how we approach literature and what we do with it. I think that’s been really interesting. For example, I did some close reading with people early on, and some of the results were quite intriguing. One of the lawyers, Sara (Fovargue), mentioned that it’s often difficult for lawyers to articulate their methodology, which I think is true for us, too. She said that close reading really helped with that because it made the methodology clearer. It’s interesting because when I looked at some of her work, I could see similar techniques at play.

That shared method across disciplines has been an exciting discovery. We’ve found a common approach that hadn’t been labelled in the way that we label it in literary studies.

Also, thinking of a literary text as a cultural artifact is something we bring to the project, considering its construction and the way it’s built. I don’t know if people always realise that, but I think they’ve found it useful in their own work.

Why is literature good for the topic we are exploring?

Georgia Walton:

So, why do you think literature is so good for the topic we’re exploring?

Sharon Ruston:

I think literature is particularly useful for the project because most of the texts we’ve read have been sci-fi or speculative fiction, and a lot of the technologies we’re studying are still in development and either aren’t available yet or aren’t widely used. Our approach is inherently speculative, so we’re trying to figure out what might happen in the future. Sci-fi and speculative fiction are invaluable for that, as they provide pre-built scenarios and worlds that people much better than I could ever create have already mapped out. The speculative nature of these texts matches our project’s aims.

Georgia Walton:

Exactly. The theory around science fiction is really helpful for unpicking how we think about the future and how that relates to the present. I’ve heard colleagues from other disciplines talk about using thought experiments to imagine legal or ethical responses to specific situations. Literary texts do something similar, but they offer much richer and more complex versions of those scenarios, incorporating many different elements. These texts often raise a wide range of social, legal, and ethical questions.

So, which of those issues do you think literature has helped raise for you in this project?

What social, legal and ethical issues has literature helped raise for the Future of Human Reproduction project?

Sharon Ruston:

You can’t really separate literature from those issues, can you? For me, literature is a product of history, so those issues have always been embedded in our discussions.

If I had to pick one text, I’d say Mendel’s Dwarf by Simon Mawer, which Sara (Fovargue) and I are writing about for the journal. It features a protagonist who’s a geneticist with achondroplasia (a form of dwarfism), and he explores various ethical issues surrounding genetic modification. The book really gets into whether certain actions should or shouldn’t be taken, especially from the perspective of someone living with a genetic condition like his. That’s the one that stands out for me, if I had to pick just one. What about for you? Is there a specific text that’s been particularly useful in raising those ethical, social, and legal questions?

Georgia Walton:

I think, well, as you say, all of these texts raise legal, social, and ethical issues. But some of them address these in a more direct way. For example, Dreams Before the Start of Time really highlights how the increased technology around gestation and pregnancy might lead to greater surveillance of pregnant people. It also shows how issues of equality and safety could be compromised if technological advancements are always bound up with corporate interests and private agendas. This could result in a two-tier class system—those who can afford the technology and those who can't. But there are others, like The Midwich Cuckoos and Nelson’s The Argonauts, that also raise important issues of queer parentage and queer futures, all under the broader banner of social issues.

What are the challenges of interdisciplinary working?

We’ve focused on the positive aspects of how literature contributes to interdisciplinary projects, but what do you think are some of the challenges of working in this interdisciplinary way, especially using literature as we have?

Sharon Ruston:

Yeah, it’s interesting, isn’t it because we came together from all these different disciplines, and it was a bit of a strange time since we met just before the (2020 Covid-19) pandemic. We’d only met a couple of times before everything shifted online, and then, once we were back to meeting in person, it felt exciting, but we had to learn how to work together.

The first year was a time when we really had to get to know each other and our disciplines. We did these “What do I do?” sessions where we’d present what each of us was working on. It was one of the best parts, actually, because it wasn’t just work—it was also about learning new things as academics. So we read each other’s work and tried to understand each other’s approaches.

We had to establish a safe space where we could be honest. We reached the point where we could say things like, "I just don’t understand what you’re talking about," or "You’re using this term in a way I wouldn’t." That’s a real challenge: creating an environment where everyone feels comfortable enough to admit when they don’t get something.

Then, we had to learn how to write together for the journal. Establishing non-hierarchical relationships between disciplines was tricky at times, and we had to develop new skills—learning from each other and reflecting on our own disciplinary approaches. There’s also the challenge of celebrating our differences. It’s easy to fall into the trap of saying, “Well, that’s just how we do it in my discipline,” but we had to move beyond that. You also have to be creative and open to working outside your own boundaries.

Do you have any thoughts on this, Georgia?

Georgia Walton:

Yeah, one of the challenges for me is that I always thought English was inherently interdisciplinary. It’s always been interested in other subjects, and literary scholars tend to move between different topics, even if they usually stay within the same historical period or nation. But what I’ve found in this project is that the primary focus for us is often the text itself. We’re always interested in representational form and how the text works. The difficulty arises when we try to move beyond that, or even engage with other disciplines while staying true to our interest in the text. It’s hard to balance this constant focus on the text with the questions from other fields. So, it’s been difficult to figure out how to integrate these concerns in a meaningful way and I think that moving from discussing and learning about other people’s work to actually producing joint work has been the biggest challenge for me.

Sharon Ruston:

Yeah, I remember Elena Semino, one of the co-investigators, pointing out that this is the moment when you see the difficulties arise. As much as we’ve talked about the wonderful things literature does, especially in terms of raising legal, social, and ethical questions, there are still differences. One challenge is constantly reminding people that a novel has its own rules and genre. We’re not necessarily concerned with how accurate a novel is to the world today; we’re more interested in how it functions as a novel. That’s something we’ve had to navigate, especially when other disciplines have a different focus.

Also, I was really adamant at the beginning that we wouldn’t call our meetings “book club” meetings, but they’ve inevitably become that anyway! Part of the reason I didn’t want to call them that is that I didn’t want to give the impression that we’re only discussing the books in a casual, book-club sense. We’re doing something much more rigorous. We’ve all studied for years to become the people we are and gained qualifications. There’s a language, a terminology, and a level of rigor to what we do. So, while I want to make this accessible, I also want people to understand that it’s a serious academic endeavour, and that balance is tricky to maintain.

Georgia Walton:

Exactly. That line is hard to walk.

Open questions from the audience

Sharon Ruston:

Yeah, it is. Anyway, I think we’ve rambled on for a while now. I wonder if there are any questions from the chat? Zindzi, are you there? Have you been keeping an eye on things?

Zindzi Cresswell:

I’m here, yes! I’ve been keeping an eye on the chat. It’s all been very interesting. We have three questions so far, and I’ll take them in the order they’ve been asked.

Here’s the first question for both of you:

Would you say that writers are mainly critical, resistant, or warning about the potential of these technologies, or are there any authors or texts that are more broadly celebratory?

Sharon Ruston:

What’s interesting is that even in texts like The Growing Season or Dreams Before the Start of Time, while the authors are warning about potential dangers, they think through the issues with such depth that the distinction between a warning and a critique doesn’t matter as much. The texts are exploring the issues in such a detailed way. But then, of course, there are authors like Margaret Atwood, who presents a much more obvious warning. In her MaddAddam trilogy, there’s not a lot of good to be found in the world she creates.

What do you think, Georgia?

Georgia Walton:

Well, with both The Growing Season and Dreams Before the Start of Time, I think it's not so much the technology itself that’s being critiqued, but the broader implications. In The Growing Season, for example, there's this rosy picture at first—where couples can have their own ecto-pouch pods at home, and both partners can hold it, with all the positive benefits associated with that. But the underlying negative aspect, both in that novel and in Atwood’s work, comes from the corporate control of technology. It's the influence of that corporate arena taking over everything.

In Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, it’s less grounded in the real world because it’s set after a nuclear apocalypse and an alien invasion, but it still touches on issues related to genetic engineering and the manipulation of organisms. It's not so much about being critical or celebratory of technology, but rather exploring the possibilities within a world where alien manipulation and genetic technology exist. There’s definitely a survival aspect to it, and adaptation becomes a key theme. The protagonist, Lilith, just gets on with it, continuing to adapt, even though some people see her as a traitor for doing so. It's not entirely positive, but it's not wholly negative either—it’s more about living with the technology and adapting to it.

Sharon Ruston:

Yeah, definitely. And with The Growing Season, there were a lot of reasons why the ecto-pouch seemed like a good thing. For example, in terms of helping women balance careers and pregnancy, allowing them to be pregnant but still be able to do everything else in life. There’s a whole discussion around the medical challenges of pregnancy, the problems it can bring, and how technology could ease some of those challenges. So, it’s not all one-sided—there are positives and negatives, and the novels do examine both.

Zindzi Cresswell:

Hmm, interesting, so it’s important to acknowledge that the technology is not purely good or purely bad—it’s all about interpretation and how readers respond to it. Moving on to the next question, though—this is open to both of you:

Are you doing any work in the project that goes beyond the texts themselves? For example, engaging with science fiction/fantasy authors or talking to readers and fans about how they perceive these works and how they shape perceptions of the field?

What’s the approach been for that kind of engagement?

Sharon Ruston:

We haven’t really done a lot of that, to be honest. We do have plans to speak to one author, but I shouldn’t say much about it yet since it's not confirmed. However, Anna McFarlane has already done some work in this area—she spoke at a conference about how fans engage with texts, and I thought that was really insightful. But yeah, we haven’t done much direct engagement with authors or readers in this way so far. It’s definitely an area I’d be interested in exploring more, though. It feels like time has gone by so quickly, and while we’ve accomplished a lot, there’s so much more we could have done.

Georgia Walton:

You did speak with Simon Mawer, though!

Sharon Ruston:

Oh yes, I did. We had an interview with him! He’s not a science fiction writer, but he wrote Mendel’s Dwarf. That was really interesting—Sara (Fovargue) and I had the chance to ask him lots of questions, and we put the transcripts up on the (Future of Human Reproduction) blog. For me, it was the first time I’d ever interviewed an author, since the work I usually do involves people who have been dead for 200 years. So, speaking to an author was a bit of an alien concept for me at first. It was an interesting experience, and I’d love to do more of it in the future.

Georgia Walton:

Yeah, Mawer’s book is about Gregor Mendel, the scientist who developed key ideas in genetics in the 19th century. So it’s definitely relevant to the project. Also, there’s another book called Baby X, and the author of that one (Kira Peikoff) also has a background in bioethics.

Sharon Ruston:

Yes, exactly! There’s a trend where authors with expertise in other areas, like genetics or bioethics, are bringing that knowledge into their novels about technology. It’s really fascinating.

Georgia Walton:

We haven’t done much work specifically on fans and how people read these texts, but we’ve looked at some YouTube videos that engage with these themes. One video, for example, fictionalizes an artificial womb facility. What was interesting was that in the comments section, people kept referencing literary texts like Brave New World, Star Wars, and The Matrix. It seems like people use these texts as a framework for thinking about these technologies, which is really interesting.

Sharon Ruston:

Yeah, we’re at the beginning of that kind of work. We haven’t explored it fully yet, but there are already indications that fans are drawing on literary texts to help shape their understanding of these technologies. We’re hoping to expand on that soon, especially with an article coming out in Medical Humanities journal. Alex Krendel and Mike Ryder have worked on this, looking at how real people respond to these issues and how they invoke literary texts in their responses.

Zindzi Cresswell:

It sounds like a lot of exciting work. Now, just off the back of that last question, I’d love to ask—

What would you have liked to spend more time on?

If there’s a top three, what would that be? And how do you think that would further the research for the team?

Ruston, Sharon

I mean, it’s kind of crazy that we haven’t ever done Frankenstein, and I think I felt a bit embarrassed because, you know, I’ve banged on about it all the time. But then, it feels a bit crazy we haven’t done it. It’s such a great text in so many ways. I think it’s an omission on our part. If we ever get a chance, that would be a great one to do.

I also kind of regret that we haven’t done any poetry because it’s one of my areas. It’s such a distinctive part of literature that would have been good. But, I’m glad we did Literary Theory, for example. I don’t think we would’ve done that without you coming on board, Georgia.

Walton, Georgia

Yeah, I think the poetry is an important area, especially because the methodological approach of close reading, really developed through poetry. It would have been nice to have included that, but it’s quite hard to find things that are directly relevant, I think.

Ruston, Sharon

Yeah.

Cresswell, Zindzi

So, in terms of engagement, were there any activities or exercises outside of just reading the texts that you’d like to do more of?

Ruston, Sharon

What do you mean by engagement, Zindzi?

Cresswell, Zindzi

Sorry, I mean engagement with real people—authors or readers—not just engaging with the texts.

Ruston, Sharon

Ah, yes! I would love to do more of that. I always enjoy engaging with people who love reading. It’s always a joy to meet them. We didn’t have a specific impact imperative with this project, but I do a lot of that type of work. One of the things I’ve loved most is meeting the people who have done the transcriptions for the Davy project. It really makes it all meaningful to meet real people who are interested in this stuff, to understand why it’s of interest to them.

I think there’s a whole area that could be explored further, though we do a bit of it at milestone events, where we hopefully get to talk to more people than just us, in June. Georgia and I might present excerpts to see how people respond to reading about reproductive technologies in literary texts.

Cresswell, Zindzi

Thank you! I’ll move us onto the next question, being mindful of time.

Did literature help with the challenge of creating an environment where people get along? How else has literature helped the research project beyond group dynamics?

Ruston, Sharon

I really think it did. It brought us together and gave us a common language. I think everyone enjoyed reading novels. The issue arose a bit when some of the books we read weren’t as enjoyable and started feeling more like work. That’s one of the challenges as the project went on. But, for most people, reading a novel for work was quite a novelty and something they were excited about.

Walton, Georgia

I think even when everyone dislikes a book, it can still help build group dynamics. In seminars, for example, if everyone hates a book, they bond over that and talk about why they disliked it, which can lead to great discussions.

Cresswell, Zindzi

Thank you, next question:

Have many of the books you’ve read engaged with issues around the climate crisis and how they intersect with reproduction?

Ruston, Sharon

Oh, I think Atwood is the most obvious one.

Walton, Georgia

Yeah, this is something I think we could explore more. In a previous project, I looked at the relationship between environmental activism, feminism, and how motherhood was used to articulate an environmental message. I’d love to develop that more here. In the paper I’m giving at BSLS this year, I’ll talk about contemporary texts that engage with Frankenstein, which might help us explore these themes. The fact that there are about five new films coming out related to Frankenstein is interesting, and I think it’s tied to reproductive anxiety around climate change and reproductive technologies.

Margaret Atwood is probably the best example where technological progress goes hand in hand with environmental degradation. But, I do think it’s an area that could be explored more.

Cresswell, Zindzi

Thank you.

Have you found anything surprising about other academic disciplines, methods, or approaches?

Ruston, Sharon

Yeah, loads! Before this project, I didn’t know anything about other disciplines. It’s funny how comfortable you are just sticking with what you know, and how you hold stereotypical ideas about other disciplines until you start talking to people.

For example, with Steve’s (Wilkinson) philosophy discipline, I’m always amazed when Steve and Nicola (Williams) write about how things should be. That’s a word we would never use in English, talking about how the world should be. That’s really interesting.

Walton, Georgia

Yeah, my biggest surprise was realizing that what I thought was philosophy from a literary perspective was actually just continental philosophy. I didn’t realize how much of academic philosophy is focused on analytical philosophy, which is quite different.

Ruston, Sharon

You’ve taught with Steve now, haven’t you?

Walton, Georgia

Yes, we’ve taught together, a session on Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go, where we tried to bring analytical and bioethics questions into conversation with literary texts.

Cresswell, Zindzi

How did that go?

Walton, Georgia

I think they (students) really enjoyed it. We asked them to bring examples of texts that had changed their philosophical views on something. I think they liked that. We looked at Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, which raises ethical questions around cloning, organ donation, and the idea of clones being used for organs. I’m not sure it offers a strong argument for the opposite perspective, but it certainly gets you thinking about the ethics of it.

Cresswell, Zindzi

That sounds great! Moving on:

I’m interested in drama and script development. Have you seen anything recently on TV, radio, or theatre that explores tech ethics and reproduction?

Ruston, Sharon

I think we’d have to mention The Bell Curves, the play by Keisha Thompson, which we helped put on in Manchester. It’s still being developed, but I think it will be seen again. The story revolves around a woman applying for a PhD to develop CRISPR technology. It explores her relationship with her sister, partner, and the ethics of genetic technology, but also has a meta element about the process of writing a play about this subject.

Walton, Georgia

Yes, that’s accurate. The play is about relational dynamics and how technology impacts those relationships. It’s also quite self-aware, discussing what it means to write about such a complex issue.

Ruston, Sharon

And we’ve watched a few films as well—Never Let Me Go, Boys from Brazil, and Gattaca.

Walton, Georgia

Gattaca is a classic. We also watched Birth Rebirth.

Ruston, Sharon

Birth Rebirth is a recent film, kind of a Frankenstein-like story, but it’s set in a hospital with all female characters. It critiques reproductive technology, focusing on a mother’s intense desire to preserve her child at any cost. It’s an inverse of Frankenstein, where instead of rejecting the creation, the mother wants to preserve it at any cost.

Walton, Georgia

Yes, Birth Rebirth is really good for thinking about reproductive technology’s impact and the ethical questions that arise from it.

Ruston, Sharon

Someone mentioned Splice. We watched that too, didn’t we?

Walton, Georgia

Yes, we did. It’s another one to add to the list.

Cresswell, Zindzi

And just in the chat, just in case you haven't seen it, Naomi Jacobs from Imagination Lancaster—thank you for joining us—has also suggested Orphan Black as a possibility.

Ruston, Sharon

Oh, yes, I watched that years ago.

Cresswell, Zindzi

Excellent. The final question for you today was actually about the films you’ve looked at, so you’ve already answered that. That’s all the questions we’ve received in the chat.

I’ll hand it back over to Sharon and Georgia in a moment, but I’ll also mention that this session’s recording will be available as a resource. We will respond to the remaining questions in the write-up. If you do have any additional questions, feel free to email the Future of Human Reproduction team at Lancaster. The email address is available on our website.

But for now, I’ll hand back over to Sharon and Georgia. Thank you both very much for answering the questions so eloquently.

Thank you and close

Ruston, Sharon

Thank you.

I just want to say thank you to everyone for coming. We really appreciate you giving up your time.

And yes, please get in touch with us if we can help at all. It’s been a real privilege to be part of the project and to work with Georgia and with everyone involved. So, thank you.

Walton, Georgia

Yeah, thank you.

I echo everything Sharon says. And if anyone has any great suggestions for texts or films that we haven’t looked at, please send them our way.

Thank you.

Ruston, Sharon

Bye-bye. Thank you.

Walton, Georgia

Bye.

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