Conceived in Modernism

Fiction is a rich ground for considering the questions of birth control and abortion ... [Wilson] make[s] intriguing connections across countries and periods. Times Literary Supplement [D]ensely packed with meticulous academic argument ... The book expanded my idea of modernism to include that earlier literature and its very different concerns ... That Wilson resurrects these stories is significant. And where scholars have previously seen the birth-control movement as arising in parallel with modernism, Wilson has found revealing intersections. Virginia Woolf Bulletin Wilson perceptively connects literary form and political discourse, birth control's rhetorical past with debates in contemporary reproductive rights, making provocative connections between the advent of the contraceptive era and the stylistic revolutions of literary modernism that transform the reader's understanding of both movements. Spanning twentieth century authors from T.S. Eliot to Octavia Butler, Wilson's astute analysis highlights the inescapable interplay between political discourse and literary form, solidifying the place of the birth control movement as a transformative moment in western culture and her own role as a significant new voice in modernist literary criticism. A. Layne Craig, Instructor of English, Texas Christian University, USA, and author of When Sex Changed: Birth Control Politics and Literature between the World Wars Conceived in Modernism sheds new light on the relation between Anglo-American modernist aesthetics and the early birth control movement. It intervenes forcefully in debates about modernist sexualities and the history of birth control and reproduction. Aimee Armande Wilson's politically informed and theoretically sophisticated readings of a range of canonical and lesser-known literary authors and birth control activists are illuminating and inspiring. Interdisciplinary in scope, the book makes an important and timely contribution to the intersecting inquiries of modernist studies, the history of sexuality, feminist criticism and sexuality studies. Jana Funke, Advanced Research Fellow in Medical Humanities, University of Exeter, UK