Cyborg Conception

Grace Halden is Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Birkbeck University, UK. She is a specialist in modern and contemporary literature and culture and her work considers the wider global dimensions of the literature she studies. Her expertise is on the human condition, technological impact on society and culture, and assisted reproduction narratives in fiction and non-fiction (primarily British and American). Her first monograph Three Mile Island: The Meltdown Crisis and Nuclear Power in American Popular Culture was published in 2017.  She is a professional member of the Donor Conception Network (DCN) and has won two funding grants for donor conception work (both funded by the Wellcome institute) and published two journal articles in the field.

1. Introduction: Cyborg Conception.- 2. Involuntary Childlessness: Fertility Clinics and the Disadvantaged Solo Mother.- 3. Selfishly Single? Bioethics and the Solo Mother.- 4. Radical or Reckless? Fiction and the Solo Mother.- 5. By Choice: Lived Experience and Memoir.- 6. Conclusion: Choosing to be Solo not Single: Why Language Matters.