Repro­duc­tive Health in Frag­ile Democ­ra­cies: Bod­ies, Tech­nolo­gies and Futures
8–9 June 2026
Pauls Stradiņš Med­i­cine His­to­ry Muse­um in Riga, Latvia 

More infor­ma­tion about the sym­po­sium is avail­able here:
https://www.mvm.lv/en/what-s-on/events/reproductive-health-in-fragile-democracies/166

The keynote speak­ers are:
Agniesz­ka Koś­ci­ańs­ka (Uni­ver­si­ty of War­saw), June 8
“I’m Not Leav­ing the Church, It’s the Church That Is Leav­ing Me”: Pol­ish Pri­vate and Pub­lic Delib­er­a­tions on Repro­duc­tive Rights, Catholi­cism and the State

Ani­ka König (Freie Uni­ver­sität Berlin), June 9
“Repro­duc­tive Entan­gle­ments: Local Worlds and Glob­al Mar­kets in Times of Crisis”

Both days of the sym­po­sium will be livestreamed via the Pauls Stradiņš Med­i­cine His­to­ry Museum’s YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@psmvmlv

The livestream links will be pub­lished on the chan­nel on the day of the event. The broad­cast will begin at 09:00 Riga time (EEST, UTC+3) on both days.

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Jen­nifer McFar­land (U. Cam­bridge) and Laeti­tia Pil­grim (U. Cam­bridge): Con­cep­tu­al­iz­ing Aging and Old Age: Per­spec­tives from Ear­ly Mod­ern Europe 

Thurs­day, June 11 2026
14 to 15.30 pm.
Online and in Room S1, Ali­son Richard Building

About this event

Age­ing occurs in all human soci­eties, yet how it has been expe­ri­enced and under­stood varies pro­found­ly across time as well as space. This pan­el asks how our crit­i­cal con­cep­tu­al vocab­u­lary for study­ing age­ing might be deep­ened and enriched by con­sid­er­ing his­to­ries of the ear­ly mod­ern world, with a focus on Eng­land and Venice in the sev­en­teenth and eigh­teenth cen­turies. In con­ver­sa­tion with con­tem­po­rary his­to­ri­an Helen McCarthy, our two speak­ers, Laeti­tia Pil­grim and Jen­nifer McFar­land, will explore how ear­ly mod­ern soci­eties con­cep­tu­alised old age through legal, spir­i­tu­al and bod­i­ly cat­e­gories, how they cared for age­ing bod­ies, and how old­er peo­ple exer­cised agency as social, polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic actors. By his­tori­ciz­ing key terms such as ‘expe­ri­ence’ ‘self­hood’ and ‘(in)dependence’, the pan­el aims to demon­strate the val­ue of think­ing about age­ing across peri­ods and dis­ci­pli­nary boundaries.

Rec­om­mend­ed option­al readings:

-‘Round­table on Chrono­log­i­cal Age’ Amer­i­can His­tor­i­cal Review (2020), edi­tors’ introduction
‑Karen Har­vey and Sarah Fox, ‘Feel­ing old in Eigh­teenth-Cen­tu­ry Britain’ Jour­nal of British Stud­ies (2025)

About the Speakers

Laeti­tia (Let­ty) Pil­grim is a sec­ond-year PhD stu­dent in His­to­ry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge. Her research inves­ti­gates expe­ri­ences of old age in sev­en­teenth- and eigh­teenth-cen­tu­ry Eng­land. She has a par­tic­u­lar inter­est in recov­er­ing the emo­tion­al dimen­sions of mem­o­ry in old age, and the social and cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance of old­er people’s mem­o­ries, mem­o­ry loss, and “feel­ings”. Let­ty is super­vised by Pro­fes­sor Alexan­dra Wal­sham. She com­plet­ed her MPhil in Ear­ly Mod­ern His­to­ry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge, and her BA in His­to­ry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oxford.

Jen­nifer (Jen) McFar­land com­plet­ed her PhD in His­to­ry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge in 2025, and holds a BA with Hon­ours and an MA in His­to­ry from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mel­bourne. Her doc­tor­al research focused on ideas about and expe­ri­ences of old age in sev­en­teenth-cen­tu­ry Venice and the Vene­to, explor­ing how arti­sans and work­ers nego­ti­at­ed this life cycle stage and how old age affect­ed prac­tices includ­ing work, mobil­i­ty, and care. Her research inter­ests lie in health and char­i­ty, every­day mobil­i­ty, and the mate­r­i­al cul­tures of domes­tic and urban space. Her new project focus­es on disability.

Helen McCarthy is Pro­fes­sor of Mod­ern and Con­tem­po­rary His­to­ry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge and a co-con­venor of the Pre­car­i­ous Aging Net­work. She is cur­rent­ly writ­ing a social his­to­ry of retire­ment in Britain since the Sec­ond World War.

CRASSH events are free and open to all unless oth­er­wise stated.

To access the event, please click here:
https://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/50556/

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Anna Molas: „Tam­ing Egg Donors: The Egg Dona­tion Repro­duc­tive Mar­ket in Spain” (Book Launch)

17th of June 2026
18.30h CEST online and in per­son in Barcelona

The pre­sen­ta­tion will be fol­lowed by a con­ver­sa­tion with Lau­ra Per­ler (Uni­ver­si­ty of Bern) and Chan­dra Kala Clemente-Martínez (Chair of the Cata­lan Asso­ci­a­tion of Adoptees). Chris New­field, ISRF Direc­tor of Research, will mod­er­ate the Q&A.

Link to reg­is­ter: Book Launch “Tam­ing Egg Donors”

About the book:
Spain has become one of the most promi­nent fer­til­i­ty mar­kets in the world, large­ly fuelled by the avail­abil­i­ty of human eggs. Behind the promise of cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy and par­ent­hood lies a care­ful­ly tai­lored sys­tem to recruit, man­age, and dis­ci­pline egg donors. In this book, Anna Molas explores how young women are incor­po­rat­ed as egg donors into the glob­al repro­duc­tive indus­try. Through in-depth ethno­graph­ic field­work with both donors and clin­i­cians, the book reveals the frag­ile process­es of selec­tion, mon­i­tor­ing, and con­trol that ensure the sup­ply of human eggs. Intro­duc­ing the con­cept of tam­ing, Molas illu­mi­nates the gen­dered, racial­ized, and classed dimen­sions of repro­duc­tive labor. Engag­ing with the polit­i­cal econ­o­my of repro­duc­tion and the future of repro­duc­tive med­i­cine, this book is an essen­tial resource for schol­ars in med­ical anthro­pol­o­gy, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Stud­ies, and fem­i­nist studies.

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Reviews:
“This metic­u­lous­ly researched and argued account of how egg donors in Spain are induct­ed into the glob­al repro-mar­ket makes a cru­cial inter­ven­tion into the now exten­sive soci­o­log­i­cal work on repro­duc­tive labour, entre­pre­neurism and strat­i­fi­ca­tion. A bril­liant con­tri­bu­tion to polit­i­cal econ­o­my as well as repro­duc­tive stud­ies, it is also a mas­ter­ful­ly con­duct­ed study with far-reach­ing impli­ca­tions for prac­ti­tion­ers as well as the social sciences.”
Sarah Franklin, Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor of Soci­ol­o­gy, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cambridge

“Enter a world of unpre­dictable bod­ies, painful injec­tions and pres­sured extrac­tions. Molas ren­ders the hid­den work and agency of young women egg donors vis­i­ble in this impor­tant ethnog­ra­phy of the posi­tion­al rela­tions between donors and clin­ics in the world’s largest egg dona­tion indus­try in Spain. In this superb book, she the­o­ris­es how par­tic­i­pat­ing in repro­duc­tive pro­vi­sion depends upon, pro­duces and cap­i­tal­izes on vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties and how young women become oppor­tunis­tic entre­pre­neurs of their repro­duc­tive potentials.”
Andrea Whit­tak­er, FASSA, Pro­fes­sor at the School of Social Sci­ences, Monash University

“Anna Molas‘ bril­liant study both con­tributes to our under­stand­ing of a key site in the glob­al sys­tem of egg pro­vi­sion – Spain – and brings a remark­able fresh per­spec­tive to the repro­duc­tive work involved. By focus­ing on the for­ma­tion of col­lab­o­ra­tive and con­test­ed rela­tion­ships between clin­i­cians and egg providers, the book exam­ines the pow­er rela­tion­ships that allow clin­ics to com­bine care with con­trol, and reli­ably dis­en­tan­gle women from their eggs. Draw­ing on the con­cep­tu­al pos­si­bil­i­ties of ‘tam­ing’, Molas gives us new ways to analyse the inti­mate labour at the heart of the fer­til­i­ty industry.”
Cather­ine Wald­by, FASSA, Pro­fes­sor at the Research School of Social Sci­ences, Aus­tralian Nation­al University

“This unique study presents a deeply researched ethnog­ra­phy of Spain’s egg dona­tion econ­o­my. Molas maps out the mar­ket log­ics and dis­ci­pli­nary tech­niques, always gen­dered, racialised, and classed, through which bod­ies are tamed for inclu­sion in bioe­co­nom­ic cir­cuits of val­ori­sa­tion, sur­veil­lance, and extrac­tion. Fore­ground­ing the voic­es of par­tic­i­pants, both donors and clin­i­cians, Molas skil­ful­ly demys­ti­fies the pow­er dynam­ics obscured by reduc­tive dis­cours­es of ‘dona­tion’ or ‘char­i­ty’. This is required read­ing for schol­ars and prac­ti­tion­ers alike.”
Dr Lars Cor­nelis­sen, Aca­d­e­m­ic Edi­tor, Inde­pen­dent Social Research Foun­da­tion, Lon­don, UK

“Tam­ing Egg Donors offers a com­pre­hen­sive account of how women in Spain come to the deci­sion to donate their eggs. By using the con­cept of tam­ing to ana­lyze the expe­ri­ences of egg donors, Molas shows how the labor involved in mak­ing eggs avail­able for the glob­al bio-mar­ket rein­forces exist­ing inequal­i­ties. This is a rich and thought­ful study that makes an impor­tant inter­ven­tion in the schol­ar­ship on repro­duc­tive labor.”
Daisy Deo­mam­po, Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor, Ford­ham University

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