VIRTUAL GLOBAL SYMPOSIUM ON SURROGACY

THE POLITICS OF REPRODUCTION: SURROGACY IN LITERATURE, FILM, VISUAL ART, AND SOCIAL MEDIA

OCTOBER 25, 2024

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:

Historian and Reproductive Justice Activist Rickie Solinger

Italian Filmmakers Rossella Anitori and Darel Di Gregorio (Surrogacy Underground, 2023)

Surrogacy has become a crucial and complex controversial issue in today’s society. It is a process fraught with ethical implications and consequences that concern, among many others, reproductive justice, women’s bodies and health, human rights, social class inequality, feminism, motherhood, masculinity, parenthood, and the concept of the family. While surrogacy is currently banned in several countries, its literary, cinematographic, and artistic representation has flourished in the past 20 years, contributing to stimulating debates that concern both the humanities and the medical humanities. This global symposium invites presentations on issues related to all aspects of surrogacy. How do literature, film, and visual art portray and problematize surrogacy? How does the media cover issues related to surrogacy, and how does the media affect and shape public opinion? We are interested in contributions that examine the practical and theoretical dimension of its representation, and address how the humanities are contributing to build bridges with the world of medicine to better respond to human and environmental needs. All interdisciplinary approaches are welcome as well as any transnational representation.

Interested scholars are invited to send their proposal in English including a title, 200-word abstract, and short bio by June 30, 2024 to Giulia Po DeLisle at giulia_delisle@uml.edu & Laura Lazzari at lazzari.laura@gmail.com.

Presenters will be notified of acceptance by July 30, 2024.

Participation in this virtual conference is free and no registration will be required.

Presentations should be given in English.

Organized by Dr. Giulia Po DeLisle and Dr. Laura Lazzari with the collaboration of

the Department of World Languages and Cultures at the University of Massachusetts Lowell,

The Sasso Corbaro Foundation for the Medical Humanities (Switzerland),

The Department of Romance, German, and Slavic Languages and Literatures at George Washington University, and

The Medical Humanities Initiative at Georgetown University