**** Generation to Reproduction ****
** Wellcome Strategic Award for Cambridge History of Medicine **
The University of Cambridge has secured major funding in the history of medicine from the Wellcome Trust. A strategic award of £785,000 for five years from 1 October 2009 will allow a cross-disciplinary group of researchers to take a concerted approach to the history of reproduction. The research will provide fresh perspectives on issues ranging from ancient fertility rites to IVF. A strongly grounded account, building on a lively field of historical investigation, will offer a fresh basis for policy and public debate.
The new grant will dramatically expand activities established in Cambridge over the last five years under a Wellcome enhancement award to the Department of History and Philosophy of Science (HPS). Historians of medicine and biology in HPS (Nick Hopwood, John Forrester, Lauren Kassell and Jim Secord, with Eleanor Robson as collaborator) will work with colleagues in Classics (Rebecca Flemming), Physiology, Development and Neuroscience (Martin Johnson), King’s College (Peter Jones), Geography (Richard Smith) and History (Simon Szreter). The team, from four of the University’s six schools,
combines expertise in every major historical period and in approaches from quantifying parish records to interviewing scientists. The aim is systematically to reassess the field.
RESEARCH STRANDS
‘Generation to Reproduction’ thematizes gradual, long-term change and the transformations of the modern age. Four complementary research strands will describe and explain continuity and change. ‘Patients and practitioners’ will study medical encounters with people seeking help with reproduction, while ‘Reproducing generations: conception and survival’ will consider how maternal, fetal, infant and childhood health have affected adult health and fertility, and the reproductive impact of sexual behaviour and venereal disease. ‘Representation and communication’ will show how changing understandings of sex, development and evolution were produced, debated and used, and
‘twentieth-century transformations: technologies, experiences and regulation’ will explore the reproductive revolutions that made assisted conception routine.
PARTNERSHIP
The strategic award marks an exciting new stage in the University’s partnership with the medical humanities programme of the Wellcome Trust. The grant will provide PhD studentships, research assistance, research leave and support for events and outreach, including a major exhibition on ‘The Book of Generation’ at the University Library. As
a sign of support from within Cambridge, the Isaac Newton Trust has granted £46,000 in matching funds.
POSITIONS
Three positions--for an events and outreach officer, a two-year research associate in history of reproductive sciences, and a one-year research assistant in modern social and medical history--will be announced soon. Two PhD studentships will be advertised for
application in the coming academic year.
More information: http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/generation/
Contact: generate@hermes.cam.ac.uk
(h/t H-SCI-MED-TECH)
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