Due to the rhetorical challenges of sharing the unmentionable, infertility is often underdiscussed in both Early Modern society and today. It has discomforted and continues to discomfort theologians, medical practitioners, politicians, scholars, and everyday people trying to build identities through societies deeply founded on the structure of the family. The very concept of family is built around parents and children–what happens when a couple is childless, what happens when the children aren’t materially seen, only known to the parents that lost them before birth? It has historically forced thinkers to grapple with their understanding of life and death, grace and agency, reality and the supernatural. This discomfort has led to this discourse of infertility being pushed to the periphery, shaping the lived reality of those experiencing childlessness and early loss. This panel seeks to excavate these unspeakable narratives and bring to the forefront the material experience of in/fertility between 1500-1700.  

We are interested in papers exploring both infertility and fertility through a variety of interdisciplinary lenses and methodologies. From the medical humanities perspective, what might midwifery manuals tell us about the female experience of infertility, miscarriage, or infant loss? How might the continued influence of Galenic theory or increasing medical knowledge of the body and study of fetuses assist couples in understanding their situation, or alternatively create a new medicalized model of their disabled reproductive body that limits and/or others them? Speaking of this, how might disability scholars explore this topic? What kinds of narratives are told about the reproductively abled and disabled body and how might these external ‘truths’ have functioned as a narrative prosthesis, a shorthand, for internal ‘truths’ about characters in this period? What strategies do early modern authors employ to name and speak about reproductive disability, a topic that remains taboo to discuss in many circles even today? Does the experience of in/fertility change based on gender? How is reproductive capacity often used as a measure of manhood or womanhood? How does fertility shape and make gender identity in the Early Modern Period? How does the rhetoric change when childlessness or singlehood is chosen? Where do discourses around sexuality and in/fertility converge or deviate? How might childlessness or having too many children affect one’s role in their community? How does socio-economic status change how in/fertility is viewed and affect the material realities of poverty or riches? Can someone be too fertile? Our use of the term ‘ground’ is intentional as we are also interested in the way that in/fertility metaphors are foundational to narratives of Empire and Nationhood as well as Nature and the Natural World. What might ecocriticism tell us about the relation between the rhetorics and realities of fertility in the natural world? About Early Modern understandings of biodiversity, ecological health, and the biblical  imperative to exercise dominion over Nature? How might the literary prevalence of untamed, fecund, green spaces teeming with unruly abundance have shaped western colonial ambitions, or vice versa? Is in/fertility a personal or a corporate concern? A product of divine judgment or grace? How might the Genesis call to “be fruitful and multiply” and the many Early Modern commentaries on this passage affect the experience of in/fertility? How did different faith practices treat the subject of in/fertility in communal practice, church doctrine, and personal belief? 

In other words, we are interested in a collection of papers that demonstrate the fertile ground (pun intended) this subject presents for early modern scholarship across disciplines. For consideration, please send an abstract of 250-400 words to Katey Roden (rodenk@gonzaga.edu) by July 25, 2026. All applicants will be notified by July 29, 2026.