Thursday, September 24, 2026 - 12:30pm - Alumni House

The Other Right to Bear: Vigor, Miscarriages, and the Speciation of Palestine 

While the question of demography is central to all political projects, reproduction management is how state power is manifested in individual bodies. This talk will focus on fertility research and treatments in Palestine*Israel in the 20th century, illustrating how dealing with reproduction entailed crossing the human/animal boundary. In this process, cowshed trouble became akin to birthing-room struggle, and the mobility of herds comparable to that of subversive people. As a hierarchy of more-than-human species was taking hold, some lives became more valued than others.