A follicle is a small cavity, sac, or gland out of which growth occurs. Hairs grow out of follicles, as do humans. The follicle, like the womb, is a speculative container of potential life. A menstruating woman loses numerous follicles with each cycle-only one will release an egg, and rarely is that egg fertilized. Medicine, technology, and big pharma have distorted this unlikely probability into a dominant narrative of, and social obsession with, reproductive futurity. With hormone stimulation, a standard part of the oocyte cryopreservation (egg freezing) process, one might produce numerous mature follicles and thus numerous eggs. Freezing then becomes a way both to preserve and heighten the fantasy of potentiality, thus circumventing Sabina Spielrein's notion that, in the reproductive instinct, there is also always already an instinct toward death ("Destruction as the Cause of Coming Into Being," 1912). Theorizing the follicle as both a space of speculation and of death, "reproductive cryopower" then refers to the biopolitics of cryogenic reproduction. This essay looks at cryonics in literature and film alongside the historical overlap of cryonics with the eugenics movement, freezing's increased popularity since the 1960s, corporate investment in human oocyte cryopreservation to retain and profit off of "prime" female labor by postponing reproduction, and recent legislative decisions, all of which increasingly relocate reproductive agency from the individual to the state.

In the late 19th- and early 20th-century USA, at a time when most physicians were focused on women's health as it related to their reproductive organs, John Harvey Kellogg offered advice and assistance for women's good health based on their dress, diet and exercise. Kellogg was a physician, reformer and self-proclaimed scientist who was also the superintendent of a popular health resort, the Battle Creek Sanitarium, in Michigan. Kellogg was involved with the eugenics movement and supported measures such as the sterilisation of those deemed "unfit". At the same time, though, he insisted that white women could achieve emancipation by way of dressing and eating well and exercising their bodies and minds. His work offers a view into untangling the assumptions of the time about women's bodies and health.

This article is concerned with the history of eugenic sterilisation in Britain through the 1920s and 1930s. In this period, the Eugenics Society mounted an active but ultimately unsuccessful campaign to legalise the voluntary surgical sterilisation of various categories of people, including those deemed 'mentally deficient' or 'defective'. We take as our explicit focus the propaganda produced and disseminated by the Eugenics Society as part of this campaign, and especially the various kinds of data mobilised therein. The parliamentary defeat of the Society's Sterilisation Bill in July 1931 marks, we argue, a significant shift in the tactics of the campaign. Before this, the Eugenics Society framed sterilisation as a promising method for eradicating, or at least significantly reducing the incidence of, inherited 'mental defect'. Subsequently, they came to emphasise the inequality of access to sterilisation between rich and poor, (re)positioning theirs as an egalitarian campaign aimed at extending a form of reproductive agency to the disadvantaged. These distinct phases of the campaign were each supported by different kinds of propaganda material, which in turn centred on very different types of data. As the campaign evolved, the numbers and quantitative rhetoric which typified earlier propaganda materials gave way to a more qualitative approach, which notably included the selective incorporation of the voices of people living with hereditary 'defects'. In addition to exposing a rupture in the Eugenics Society's propagandistic data practices, this episode underscores the need to further incorporate disabled dialogues and perspectives into our histories of eugenics.

Recent scholarship has examined the many ways modernist writers were drawn to the ideas of the eugenics movement of the early twentieth century. Most of this attention, however, has been paid to how these ideas filtered into the content of modernist works, while relatively little has concerned the ways debates over eugenics may have shaped their style and form. Taking up two of Aldous Huxley’s mid-career novels, After Many a Summer (1939) and Ape and Essence (1948), this essay considers how they are informed by ideas about degeneration and decay, forwarded by eugenicists such as Max Nordau and Cesare Lombroso. In exploring how Huxley’s thought developed beyond his fascination with aesthetic disjunction, this essay examines how these novels enacted satirical attacks on prevailing aesthetic tendencies toward fragmentation, even as the only way Huxley the author could find to attack the specter of degeneration feared by Huxley the social critic was by means of the very degenerative aesethetics he wanted to set himself against.

Introduction and Definition: Eugenics is the belief that the human species can be "improved" through selective reproduction, derived by Francis Galton in 1883. This paper presents a critique of eugenics as a practice in Canada, and how it has evolved over time to represent an autonomous approach in current reproductive healthcare. This historical progression is examined by outlining policies and comparing practices in eugenics that have shifted how current reproductive healthcare is conducted. Origins of Eugenics: During the 1930s, physicians adopted eugenics and called for the sterilization of those considered "defective” including the lower class, immigrants, ethnic minorities including Indigenous groups, LGBTQ+, criminals, and those with disabilities. Eugenicists argued that controlling heredity was essential to eliminate the unfavourable traits. It is important to note that desirable and undesirable traits varied by country. The country’s eugenic policies depended on which traits were considered undesirable and desirable and ultimately led to sterilization. Policies and Practices in Canada: In Canada, government intervention focused on shaping the genetic makeup of society through laws and policies granting the state control over procreation. Alberta was the first province in Canada to introduce the Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act in 1928. According to the Act, sterilization would prevent "the risk of passing “mental defects” to future children and was often used for individuals who were institutionalized for mental health issues. Modern Eugenics in Healthcare: Current research in genetics focuses on the use of reproductive technologies to guide reproduction decisions by prioritizing individual choice and informed consent using genetic screening and counseling. For example, prenatal screening detects genetic defects and improves parental reassurance and pregnancy management. However, challenges remain regarding the implications of identifying and addressing genetic abnormalities prenatally. Implications of Eugenics in Healthcare and Future Directions: In healthcare, initiatives such as sterilization or selective termination were used to reduce future health burdens. Modern geneticists sought to differentiate their work from the eugenics movement by prioritizing reproductive autonomy in their practice. As a result, the emphasis on bioethical principles such as autonomy and justice in medicine have introduced the role of genetic counselling in perinatal care.

The present paper investigates the reception of the activity and the works of Adolf Csallner (1895-1992). He was one of the most exponential figures of the eugenic movement which gained audience in the interwar period among the Transylvanian Saxons and stimulated the self-Nazification of Lutheran pastors of various ranks. Csallner started as a man of the church and from that position tilted to more radical völkisch ideas, finally, becoming fascinated by the national - socialist racial ideas and choosing to infuse his works with such ideological idiosyncrasies. In the present paper, I recognize four communities of reading, each having their advocates and an anticipated readership. Hence, the authors of different printings sought to guide and influence its anticipated public to a specific understanding of the career of this Transylvanian Saxon clergyman. First and foremost, I am pursuing the feedback received from the side of the (pan-)/German and Transylvanian Saxon readership from the interwar period who read Csallner’s texts at first hand and could be animated by the same essentialist ideas. Secondly, I distinguish between a community of reading which was expected to positively respond to the efforts of rehabilitating Csallner’s work in order to defend an entire nazified generation. In relation to this, I reflect on how a diasporic Saxon readership was invited to recuperate Csallner as a martyrized man of the church, always in the service of his ethnic group with all the argumentative means available. A third community of reading is constituted by the readers who may have considered Csallner’s career and works, by circumstantial bibliographical referencing, hence, portraying him as a eugenicist among others, a veritable exponent for the phenomenon of right-wing radicalization experienced by the ethnic minorities’ elites from the post-imperial states. Finally, I identify a fourth community of reading which has been guided to regard Csallner as a racial driven clerical fascist. In short, this paper aims to demonstrate how the profile of an author entangled with the collective identity projects of an ethnic group during interwar and, especially, in post-war eras.

ABSTRACTDespite extensive scholarship on mid‐twentieth‐century global family planning, the motivations of American elites in launching these initiatives in Asia, Latin America, and Africa remain debated. Based on archival research, this paper reveals that these programs were driven by a racial ideology rooted in white supremacist anxieties, intrinsically tied to fears about demographic changes. Elites framed “non‐white” people as lacking rational capacity, creating both the urgency and legitimacy for interventions aimed at controlling their growth. By tracing how narratives evolved—from early fears of racial degeneration and race suicide to the eugenics movement and the application of the Demographic Transition Model—this paper argues that the global population control campaign was not primarily a response to overpopulation. Instead, it aimed to limit the growth of “non‐white” population as a means of consolidating white supremacy.

While Julian S. Huxley's role in the Eugenics Society is well known, the ways in which his scientific research program intimately intertwined with his broader social views is sometimes overlooked. This paper analyzes Huxley's earlier and later research centering Individual (1912) and Modern Synthesis (1942) as two case studies in the context of his larger body of work. There currently exists much exceptional literature on Huxley, which is incorporated and reviewed as much as possible. That literature explores the connection between Huxley's biological views and social views, but there is more to say about the nature of that connection warranting a return to the details of his research program. Huxley aimed to establish the biologist's role for engineering human evolution towards sets of ideals conceived by the educated elite.

Abstract This article demonstrates how the work of fantasist George MacDonald interacted with Victorian debates regarding women’s health. Participating in the trend to interpret MacDonald’s fiction as invested in contemporary societal issues, I bring to the forefront MacDonald’s interest in women’s rights and alternative medicine. Emphasizing MacDonald’s belief in the persuasive power of appealing indirectly to the imagination, I argue that MacDonald aimed to participate in women’s health reform through his short fiction. Focusing on works published between 1850 and 1880, I discuss MacDonald’s fairy tales in conjunction with his realist fiction in order to discern a pattern of literary tropes, such as the cursed princess, deployed to subvert dominant medical views of women’s bodies. I consider how MacDonald represents elements of Victorian medicine, such as the clinical objectification of patients, the medicalization of disability, and the early social eugenics movement. In his countercultural representation of impaired female characters as empowered heroines, I argue that MacDonald challenges the medical stigmatization of women’s bodies. This article also considers how MacDonald challenges the interventionism of Victorian allopathy by celebrating the practices of established alternative approaches, such as homeopathy and hydropathy. As an early proponent of bibliotherapy, MacDonald demonstrates his belief in the healing potential of narrative both within the context of his narratives and in his use of narrative to improve women’s health practices.

This paper draws on data from an ongoing qualitative research study on the educational experiences and identities of Black transnational women to explore the question: “What can be learned about the transnational legacies of eugenicist thought as we examine the stories of two Black German women?” These data are represented in two vignettes crafted from interviews, conversations, and memories to explore the implications of eugenicist logic in the lives of Black German women. Decried as an ableist, racist, misogynistic, and pseudoscientific project that sought to improve “human stock,” the objectives of the eugenics movement of the early 19th century have been rejected in most scholarly fields of the 21st century. However, the narratives centered in this paper show that eugenicist logic, ideologies, and discourses remain persistent, insidious parts of contemporary discourses. Theoretically and methodologically, the paper engages a Transnational Black Feminist approach (Burkhard, 2019, 2021) to qualitative research to attend to the ways in which eugenicist ideologies are narrated and reproduced in intimate moments of everyday life, highlighting the continuous need for contemporary feminist scholarship to consider global, transnational, and local lenses in knowledge production.

The eugenics movement emerged in various countries from the late 1800s to the 1940s, and the Mental Defectives Amendment Bill 1928 was the high point in the history of the eugenics movement in New Zealand, the first and last time that the highest goal of the eugenics movement in New Zealand was included in the provisions of the bill, the sterilization, but the sterilization provision was ultimately forced to withdraw due to the contradictions of various parties, resulting in the ultimate failure of the Amendment Bill 1928. However, the sterilization provision was eventually withdrawn due to conflicts between different parties, leading to the failure of the Amendment Bill 1928. This paper analyzes the reasons for the failure of the Amendment Bill 1928, in order to get a glimpse of the basic map and direction of New Zealand’s social history at the beginning of the twentieth century.

This article presents intersectional and interdisciplinary approaches to gynecological- obstetric violence in Mexico. It includes a historical and philosophical analysis of the hegemonic model of motherhood, its implications on the lives of racialized women, and violent gynecological-obstetric care in the public health system. The origins of the motherhood model between the 17th and 19th centuries are explored, alongside its repercussions in contemporary society. The article also critiques public health policies implemented at the beginning of the 20th century, influenced by the eugenics movement, and examines their relationship with the current public health system, which has normalized forced contraception targeting racialized, working-class, peasant, impoverished and/or migrant women, as well as the violation of their human rights in delivery rooms. Furthermore, a critique is made of in Mexico’s fragmented and inefficient health system, particularly in providing medical care to women in areas such as sexual and reproductive health, cervical cancer, breast cancer, gynecological-obstetric violence, and forced contraception. Finally, it concludes with reflections on the need for an anti-racist and anti-patriarchal perspective regarding the guarantee of the right to health, the right to care, sexual and reproductive rights, and, more broadly, human rights for racialized women.

The transgender movement, better termed the transgender industry, is just the tip of the iceberg to a much bigger agenda where reproduction without copulation or gestation may be the norm as well as serving the political groundwork for the burgeoning rights discourse surrounding the transhumanism movement, which embraces that idea of self-directed human evolution using technology to transcend their current natural state and limitations, i.e. disease, ageing, and even death. The ideology behind the transgender movement can be traced to the objectives specified in the manifestos of the Humanist Association, which, according to this author, also provides the basis for transhumanism. Transgenderism, framed as a human rights movement, promotes the idea that children have the right to change their minds, try out new styles and express themselves. However, this is a cover-up by a vast new industry to win the battle of the minds of innocent children to select to change their sexual heritage using dangerous drugs and mutilate their bodies by removing body parts according to their ‘sexual’ whim. This movement is a prelude to the transhumanism movement as self-selecting to be sterilized through the mutilation of one’s biological sex opens society to ethically loaded issues like hiring mothers, artificial wombs and the selection of sperm and ovaries used to produce the next generation. Transgender individuals, therefore, also play into the hands of the eugenics movement aimed at selective breeding and restraining population growth. Among other issues, this article explores the history, problems, players, and implications of transgenderism. It also opens the debate between novelty as progressive and hereditary as congenital or inbred. Living according to our sexual orientation does not mean we have to mutilate our bodies or deconstruct our inherent biological identity; our gender preference can also change over time. In conclusion, I suggest that we must explore and discover our spiritual nature and the spiritual underpinning of reality to protect our children and create a society that lives in harmony with each other and Nature, including our given inherent nature.

First released in 1985, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale has since become a seminal work of feminist speculative fiction. Set in the former United States, the fictionalized Republic of Gilead presents a terrifying reproductive theocracy in which all women are subjugated and fertile women are forcibly conscripted into biological slavery. Often satirical and wry, the novel has been celebrated for its depictions of biological essentialism which reduces the titular Handmaids to the status of reproductive vessels for the state. Such representations of biological essentialism define Atwood’s novel as a work of eugenic fiction which echoes the policies and practices of reproductive control that dominated the early eugenics movement in the first half of the twentieth century. Furthering this connection is the novel’s use of botanical and agricultural metaphors that continually liken women to both fertile plants and breeding stock, reflecting the language employed in early eugenic rhetoric. In transforming the novel for television, the Hulu adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale (2017–present) extends such metaphors, visually literalizing them to create a work of eugenic horror, which violently and emphatically depicts the consequences of reducing women to their reproductive capacity. In doing this, the television adaptation not only heightens its source text’s eugenic themes but also provides a space in which to reframe Atwood’s Handmaid protagonist, Offred, reconfiguring her as the horror genre’s Final Girl, who not only survives the eugenic horror to which she is subjected but also overcomes it.

In both Michael Curtiz and William Keighley’s sweeping technicolor saga The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), and Robin of Sherwood (1984-1986), the cult classic television show of the 1980s, disability justice is framed as central to Robin Hood’s subversive social mission. While this is textually explicit, it remains an under-explored aspect of these adaptations. In both the film and the series, acquired disability is linked with a medieval legal system presented as inherently abusive. Both adaptations, however, also frame the restorative work of creating anti-ableist communities as necessary and joyful labor. This essay argues that, in both The Adventures of Robin Hood and Robin of Sherwood, Robin Hood can be read as resisting contemporary oppressions, whether those of the widespread eugenics movements of the 1930s or the austerity of Thatcherite Britain. In both adaptations, the community of Sherwood is shown as socially integrating those with disabilities and thus challenging the dominant political system and its production of abledness. Moreover, these media adaptations open up possibilities in the medieval world as imagined, rejecting a portrayal of the Middle Ages in themselves as inherently oppressive.

In this article, I discuss two popular tropes about the cyborg in speculative fiction visual media: apotheosis — the pinnacle of human form and function; and grotesquerie — the violation of that perfection through fascinating horror. I look at these tropes in service of discussing the effects of such images and cultural understandings on actual cyborgs. The everyday or common cyborgs that are disabled people; the ones with prosthetics, who use wheelchairs, hearing aids, beta blockers, and Ritalin, who have artificial valves, knees, and pacemakers. I argue that the imagery of perfection and horror that surround cyborgs in media reinforce problematic tropes about disabled people, specifically the tropes of the super crip, pity, and bitter cripple narratives, and the ugly is evil trope where physical disfigurements and disabilities are often shorthand for moral failing. I connect these tropes to longstanding beliefs that were foundational to the eugenics movement of the 19th and 20th centuries, and that still cause resistance to robust social services for disabled people.

Biomedical advances in genomics, particularly the sequencing of the human genome and the subsequent development of a very versatile human genome editing (HGE) tool – the CRISPR Cas9 – have deepened concerns of many over possible eugenic abuses in the deployment of the technology in clinical settings. This is not surprising considering the ignominious history associated with the eugenic movement of the past. This article, using a human-rights focused and theoretical approach, contests the arguments and counter arguments for and against the eugenic goals of HGE, particularly concerning human germline genome editing (HGGE). In doing this, it interspersed the discourse with particularized African perspectives on eugenics and HGE. The article, after establishing the claim of the pursuit of eugenic goals regarding HGGE, goes ahead to offer five suggestions on the implications of these for the design of appropriate legal and regulatory frameworks in response. Foundational is the recognition that law should promote and not stifle innovation. Law, however, should be based on “good science” backed with ascertainable scientific and clinical evidence, not pseudoscience. Likewise, an appropriate legal and regulatory response should consolidate and advance basic human rights including the rights of people living with disability.

The paper aims to understand the various legacies of eugenics in the postwar period to recognize both the continuities and discontinuities of eugenics with an approach which is both conceptually sound and historically correct. Building on earlier work of Lene Koch, the paper endeavours to chart the historical trajectory of eugenics by examining how its definition and those of its related or oppositional concepts have evolved within selected lexicon entries across various stages of the century. The inclusion and publication of a concept within a lexicon indicate its significance, linguistic vitality, and prevalence in public discourse. These entries serve as a window into the contemporary understanding and application of concepts over an entire century, offering insights into the practices of eugenics as interpreted by the authoritative scholars of the era. Additionally, these lexicon entries offer more than just a mirror to the past’s prevailing attitudes. The very act of articulating a concept may be viewed as a pivotal element in social struggles, influencing the course of eugenic practices and their interpretations. Both conceptual history and discourse analysis share common ground in their perception of concepts, considering the use of language as a social activity endowed with performative capabilities. They recognize that language does not merely reflect reality but can actively shape it, playing a significant role in societal dynamics and power relations. The Hungarian lexicon entries on eugenics reveal notable disparities in the identified content, the periodization, and the evolution of changes when compared to Lene Koch’s earlier study on Scandinavian eugenics. In Hungary, the concept of eugenics underwent significant changes over four successive periods. The history and interpretation of eugenics can vary significantly from one country to another. Different nations have had their unique experiences and trajectories with the eugenics movement, which have been shaped by their specific cultural, political, and social contexts. These variations emphasize the importance of considering the localized and historical perspectives when examining the concept of eugenics.

The emergence of Nazi ideology and the rise of Nazism represented one of the most dramatic and tragic events of modern times, the consequences of which humanity is still dealing with today. The doctrine of the superiority of the Aryan race was an integral part of Nazi doctrine and served as a “scientific” justification for German expansionism and the policy of ethnic genocide. The Nazi conception of the German nation as the chosen Aryan racial community was identified as an example of a modern political myth by Henry Tudor in the early 1970s [Tudor 1972: 16]. We will attempt to explain the rise of Aryan ideology using the concept of political myth and Blumenberg’s notion of “work on myth” as the result of the long development of Western genealogical speculation, which underwent a process of secularization during the Enlightenment and once combined with stimuli coming from contemporary natural sciences, was used under the conditions of modern industrial society to “rationally” legitimize inequalities between people. A parallel development, consisting in the attempt to deny by scientific arguments the equality of human beings, despite the spread of liberal ideas inspired, among others, by the American and French Revolutions, took place in the economic sciences, where the doctrine of the British political economist Thomas Robert Malthus gained prominence at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Malthusianism, Aryan race ideology, Social Darwinism, or the eugenics movement thus had a common denominator, which Friedrich August von Hayek called the “counter-revolution of science” or Zeev Sternhell “counter-Enlightenment”.

BackgroundFor more than a century, scientists have tried to find the key to causation of mental ill health in heredity and genetics. The difficulty of finding clear and actionable answers in our genes has not stopped them looking. This history offers important context to understanding mental health science today.MethodsThis article explores the main themes in research on genetics and inheritance in psychiatry from the second half of the nineteenth century to the present day, to address the question: what is the history of genetics as a causative explanation in mental health science? We take a critical historical approach to the literature, interrogating primary and secondary material for the light it brings to the research question, while considering the social and historical context.ResultsWe begin with the statistics gathered in asylums and used to ‘prove’ the importance of heredity in mental ill health. We then move through early twentieth century Mendelian models of mental inheritance, the eugenics movement, the influence of social psychiatry, new classifications and techniques of the postwar era, the Human Genome Project and Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) and epigenetics. Setting these themes in historical context shows that this research was often popular because of wider social, political and cultural issues, which impacted the views of scientists just as they did those of policymakers, journalists and the general public.ConclusionsWe argue that attempting to unpick this complex history is essential to the modern ethics of mental health and genetics, as well as helping to focus our efforts to better understand causation in mental ill-health.For a succinct timeline of the history of psychiatric genetics, alongside the history of other proposed causes for mental ill-health, visit:https://historyofcauses.co.uk/