Robin E. Jensen is Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Utah and the author of Dirty Words: The Rhetoric of Public Sex Education in the United States, 1870–1924 (2010).

• ContentsList of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsIntroductionChapter 1: From Barren to Sterile: The Evolution of a Mixed MetaphorChapter 2: Vital Forces Conserved: Narrating Energy Conservation and Human Reproduction at the Turn-of-the-CenturyChapter 3: Improving Upon Nature: The Rise of Reproductive Endocrinology and Chemical Theories of FertilityChapter 4: Psychogenic Infertility: The Unconscious Defense Against MotherhoodChapter 5: Fertility in Clinical Time: The Integration of Scientific Specialties as Infertility StudiesConclusionNotesReferencesIndex

“Robin Jensen’s thoughtful and engaging study interrogates a complicated matrix of cultural narratives, medical epistemologies, and gender normativities in order to scrutinize the evolution and constitution of infertility. Her investigation of infertility’s medicalization, shaped by metaphors that simultaneously percolate and lurk at particular historical moments, is compelling in its execution and impressive in its scope. Jensen’s sweeping archive and innovative thesis resist narrative simplicity, offering a valuable contribution to the field of rhetorical studies.”—Jeff Bennett, author of Banning Queer Blood: Rhetorics of Citizenship, Contagion, and Resistance