Reminder: The deadline for registration is 12 April 2005.

Between the farm and the clinic: agriculture and reproductive technology in
the twentieth century

A one-day workshop, organised by Sarah Wilmot and Nick Hopwood, and funded
by the Wellcome Trust, will be held in the Department of History and
Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge on Friday 29 April 2005.

Purpose

The reproductive technologies that through the twentieth century were
increasingly used to detach sex from reproduction continue to attract
intense interest. But while the history, sociology and anthropology of
reproductive medicine have been actively studied for several years, we have
hardly begun to explore agriculture, the other major field of reproductive
innovation, and its relations to medicine. The use of animal breeding as a
resource for eugenics is clear and a rich body of research on the making of
hormones has linked abattoirs with laboratories, pharmaceutical companies
and clinics. Yet though Adele Clarke long ago highlighted the importance of
the intersection of biology, medicine and agriculture in the making of the
reproductive sciences, we still know very little about farms as sites of
technological innovation in the reproduction of both other animals and
human beings. This workshop aims to break new ground in two main ways.
First, we want to promote work on the making, organization and
communication of reproductive knowledge among experts and laypeople in
agricultural settings. We hope to bring together agricultural history with
methodological insights from the sociology and anthropology of science,
technology and medicine. Second, we want to explore the networks linking
animal breeding, reproductive science, experimental biology, clinical
medicine and the pharmaceutical industry. How have, not just raw materials,
but also technologies and discourses, circulated between farms, abattoirs,
research laboratories and clinics? To what extent and in what ways have
farm animals served as a testing ground for technologies, from hormones to
artificial insemination and embryo transfer, that were later developed for
humans?

Programme

Adele Clarke (University of California, San Francisco) 'Reflections on
reproductive sciences in agriculture in the U.S. and the U.K. since c.
1900'

Christopher Polge (University of Cambridge) 'The Animal Research Station in
Cambridge'

Sarah Wilmot (University of Cambridge) 'From public service to artificial
insemination: animal breeding science in early twentieth century Britain'

Abigail Woods (University of Manchester) 'The farm as clinic: managing
bovine infertility in wartime Britain'

Paul Brassley (University of Plymouth) 'Beyond the dairy: the uptake of AI
in other farming systems'

Naomi Pfeffer (London Metropolitan University) '"A milk round in reverse":
collecting urine from animals and humans'

John Clarke (University of Oxford) 'The scientific study of reproduction
and fertility in Britain, France and USA: the birth and growth of three
learned societies'

Sarah Franklin (LSE) 'Ovine imbrications: from the woolsack to the egg sac
in Anglo-Australian sciences of sheep'

For more information, including a booking form, please visit
<http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/medicine/workshop.html>.