Current debates about birth control can be surprisingly volatile, especially given the near-universal use of contraception among American and British women. Conceived in Modernism: The Aesthetics and Politics of Birth Control offers a new perspective on these debates by demonstrating that the political positions surrounding birth control have roots in literary concerns, specifically those of modernist writers. Whereas most scholarship treats modernism and birth control activism as parallel, but ultimately separate, movements, Conceived in Modernism shows that they were deeply...

Current debates about birth control can be surprisingly volatile, especially given the near-universal use of contraception among American and British women. Conceived in Modernism: The Aesthetics and Politics of Birth Control offers a new perspective on these debates by demonstrating that the political positions surrounding birth control have roots in literary concerns, specifically those of modernist writers. Whereas most scholarship treats modernism and birth control activism as parallel, but ultimately separate, movements, Conceived in Modernism shows that they were deeply...