Resistant Reproductions

Pregnancy and Abortion in British Literature and Film

Fran Bigman

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English

Routledge
30 July 2025

Literary studies: from c 1900 -; Humanities; Media studies; Birth control, contraception, family planning

Series: Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature

Resistant Reproductions asks why narratives of pregnancy and abortion emerged in the early twentieth century and what kinds of stories these narratives conveyed. Is it only once pregnancy becomes plannable that it becomes a story worth telling? Abortion is often considered resistant and feminist, while pregnancy is considered domestic and conventional. How can readings of literary narratives challenge this reductive binary?

Resistant Reproductions, the first book-length study of both pregnancy and abortion in British culture, addresses these questions by examining pregnancy narratives, including abortion narratives, in British fiction and film from 1907 to 1967. Fiction became a way for writers to explore what new possibilities of reproductive control would mean for the individual, yet there was also much anxiety about who would have control: individuals or the state. While exploring intimate personal experiences of pregnancy and abortion, Resistant Reproductions also asks how literary narratives used reproductive plots to address political issues of gender, class, and eugenics.

By: Fran Bigman
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9781032709567
ISBN 10: 1032709561
Series: Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature
Pages: 188
Publication Date: 30 July 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Fran Bigman is an independent academic who lives in New York City. She received her PhD and MPhil in English from the University of Cambridge and her BA in History from Brown University.