Infertility

Tracing the History of a Transformative Term

Nonfiction, Reference & Language, Language Arts, Public Speaking, Rhetoric, Health & Well Being, Medical, Reference, History, Social & Cultural Studies, Political Science, Government, Social Policy
Cover of the book Infertility by Robin E. Jensen, Penn State University Press
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Author: Robin E. Jensen ISBN: 9780271078199
Publisher: Penn State University Press Publication: October 31, 2016
Imprint: Penn State University Press Language: English
Author: Robin E. Jensen
ISBN: 9780271078199
Publisher: Penn State University Press
Publication: October 31, 2016
Imprint: Penn State University Press
Language: English

This book explores the arguments, appeals, and narratives that have defined the meaning of infertility in the modern history of the United States and Europe.

Throughout the last century, the inability of women to conceive children has been explained by discrepant views: that women are individually culpable for their own reproductive health problems, or that they require the intervention of medical experts to correct abnormalities. Using doctor-patient correspondence, oral histories, and contemporaneous popular and scientific news coverage, Robin Jensen parses the often thin rhetorical divide between moralization and medicalization, revealing how dominating explanations for infertility have emerged from seemingly competing narratives. Her longitudinal account illustrates the ways in which old arguments and appeals do not disappear in the light of new information, but instead reemerge at subsequent, often seemingly disconnected moments to combine and contend with new assertions.

Tracing the transformation of language surrounding infertility from “barrenness” to “(in)fertility,” this rhetorical analysis both explicates how language was and is used to establish the concept of infertility and shows the implications these rhetorical constructions continue to have for individuals and the societies in which they live.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

This book explores the arguments, appeals, and narratives that have defined the meaning of infertility in the modern history of the United States and Europe.

Throughout the last century, the inability of women to conceive children has been explained by discrepant views: that women are individually culpable for their own reproductive health problems, or that they require the intervention of medical experts to correct abnormalities. Using doctor-patient correspondence, oral histories, and contemporaneous popular and scientific news coverage, Robin Jensen parses the often thin rhetorical divide between moralization and medicalization, revealing how dominating explanations for infertility have emerged from seemingly competing narratives. Her longitudinal account illustrates the ways in which old arguments and appeals do not disappear in the light of new information, but instead reemerge at subsequent, often seemingly disconnected moments to combine and contend with new assertions.

Tracing the transformation of language surrounding infertility from “barrenness” to “(in)fertility,” this rhetorical analysis both explicates how language was and is used to establish the concept of infertility and shows the implications these rhetorical constructions continue to have for individuals and the societies in which they live.

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