Principal Investigator: Dr Anna McFarlane, University of Leeds

During her time at Lancaster, Anna will contribute to The Future of Human Reproduction project by bringing the interests of the project into conversation with science fiction scholars. Through an interactive event, collaborative seminars, and a film screening, she will consider how contemporary science fiction understands and interrogates the future possibilities for human reproduction.

Looking at science fiction as a narrative tool for thinking about future health possibilities allows consideration of the technological possibilities alongside the potential social and ethical implications that these possibilities raise. It speaks to the existing scholarly interests of The Future of Human Reproduction investigators while developing literature as a key ground for interrogating futures narratives.

Anna McFarlane is Lecturer in Medical Humanities at the University of Leeds. Her current work focuses on the representation of traumatic pregnancy, particularly in science fiction, and she has published on ectogenesis and gene editing in contemporary British speculative fiction.