In the Age of Revolution, how did American women conceive their lives and marital obligations? By examining the attitudes and behaviors surrounding the contentious issues of family, contraception, abortion, sexuality, beauty, and identity, Susan E. Klepp demonstrates that many women--rural and urban, free and enslaved--began to radically redefine motherhood. They asserted, or attempted to assert, control over their bodies, their marriages, and their daughters' opportunities. Late-eighteenth-century American women were among the first in the world to disavow the continual childbearing and large families that had long been considered ideal. Liberty, equality, and heartfelt religion led to new conceptions of virtuous, rational womanhood and responsible parenthood. These changes can be seen in falling birthrates, in advice to friends and kin, in portraits, and in a gradual, even reluctant, shift in men's opinions. Revolutionary-era women redefined femininity, fertility, family, and their futures by limiting births. Women might not have won the vote in the new Republic, they might not have gained formal rights in other spheres, but, Klepp argues, there was a women's revolution nonetheless.

Imperfect Conceptions reveals how Chinese cultural currents - fear and fascination with the deviant and the urge to draw clear boundaries between the normal and the abnormal - have combined with medical discourse to form a program of eugenics that is viewed with alarm by the rest of the world.

Explores how Christians understood the meaning and significance of Jewish books at the beginning of the sixteenth century. This book tells the story of the so-called Pfefferkorn affair, the attempt to confiscate and burn all Jewish post-biblical literature in the Holy Roman Empire in the years 1509-10.

Infertility and assisted reproductive technologies in India lie at the confluence of multiple cultural conceptions. These ‘conceptions’ are key to understanding the burgeoning spread of assisted reproductive technologies and the social implications of infertility and childlessness in India. This longitudinal study is situated in a number of diverse locales which, when taken together, unravel the complex nature of infertility and assisted conception in contemporary India.

Traces the way popular attitudes came to demonize young mothers and examines the profound social and economic changes that have influenced debate on the issue, especially since the 1970s. --From publisher description.

This book brings together eminent and emerging scholars to present cutting-edge research on diverse conceptions of giftedness and talent from a range of international perspectives. It covers classical views, emphasizing IQ, but also seeks to move the academic debate on from the common exclusive emphasis on IQ-based skills. In each chapter the contributors address both theoretical advances and practical applications for administrators, teachers, and parents. The editors conclude by integrating the different points of view and showing ways in which major ideas, even when given different names, can be integrated to provide a holistic and integral viewpoint on giftedness and talent. This book will appeal to students and scholars of creativity, giftedness and gifted education; as well as to practitioners, teachers and education policymakers.

Written by a medical and a legal pioneer in the field, this book comprehensively reviews and analyzes the evolving law and policy issues surrounding assisted reproductive technologies. Dr. Howard W. Jones, Jr., founder of the first in vitro fertilization program in the United States, offers medical commentary, while attorney Susan L. Crockin, author of the column "Legally Speaking" in ASRM News (the newsletter of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine), provides legal analysis. The book opens with a legal primer and timelines sketching the medical and legal milestones in the history of reproductive technology and law. Each chapter provides a case-by-case discussion of the relevant law, as well as cogent medical and legal commentary and analysis on a particular substantive area. Chapter topics deal with a vast array of issues, including artificial insemination, sperm and egg donation, traditional and gestational surrogacy, posthumous reproduction, same-sex parentage, genetics, cryopreservation and embryo litigation, discrimination and access to reproductive care, professional liability, stem cell research, and abortion. In discussing the medical and legal issues surrounding these topics, Crockin and Jones reveal what has gone right and what at times has gone terribly wrong for both the families and the professionals involved. They make clear that technological advancements have far outpaced the laws and policies in place to protect all who use them. This book makes a timely contribution to current debates over the legal and policy issues raised by the highly publicized birth of octuplets in California and the embryo legislation activity taking place in many states. It offers information and insight to policymakers, medical and legal professionals, patients and other participants, and everyone else interested in the history and future direction of the field.