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ReproSoc

Reproductive Sociology Research Group
 

Biography

Egg Freezing

Lucy van de Wiel's research focuses on the interdisciplinary study of assisted reproductive technologies and their relation to contemporary conceptualisations and practices of ageing. This relation is at the heart of her current research project on egg freezing, titled Freezing Fertility: Oocyte Cryopreservation and the Gender Politics of Ageing. This study critically examines the controversial introduction of oocyte cryopreservation in the early 21st century and argues that the widespread concern with whether and why women should freeze their eggs is indicative of a contemporary rethinking and politicisation of what it means to age. With close analyses of visual and textual mediations of this technology—including documentaries, news coverage, informed consent forms and cellular imagery—she theorises the changing relations between reproductivity and ageing that emerge with the advent of oocyte cryopreservation.

 

Datafication of Reproduction 

She is also developing a research project on the intersection of data technologies and reproductive technologies. It is currently focused on time-lapse embryo imaging, a new embryo selection method that involves the production of videos of embryo development in IVF procedures. Since its 2013 introduction in the UK, time-lapse embryo imaging has attracted national media attention and has been promoted by major UK fertility clinics as an alternative, and superior, form of embryo selection in IVF. This research project centres on the representation and instrumentalisation of embryonic ageing that emerges with this new reproductive technology, which is currently being widely implemented, and is changing the face of IVF. 

This project is also developed in collaboration with the Alan Turing Institute, where she is a Turing Fellow

 

Public Engagement: Life in Glass

At ReproSoc, she moreover leads the Life in Glass project, a major programme of outreach activities funded by the Wellcome Trust. It is comprised of a number of exciting cultural projects, including an animated film festival, a new exhibition of original art work by Gina Glover and a series of specially-commissioned ‘technique’ films that give an inside look in the IVF clinic. These cultural events invite a broad range of audiences to link the technical history of IVF with questions of seeing and knowing life as it is enclosed in, and observed through, glass.

 

Education  

Lucy van de Wiel received her PhD in 2015 at the University of Amsterdam and won the 2016 ASCA Award for best dissertation as well as the 2017 Erasmus Research Prize. She pursued postgraduate studies as a HSP and Fulbright grantee in Rhetorics at the University of California, Berkeley, holds a Research MA in Cultural Analysis (cum laude) from the University of Amsterdam and an MA in Film Curating (with distinction) from the London Film School and London Consortium, University of London.

 

Publications

Key publications: 

 

2021. Nick Hopwood, Staffan Müller-Wille, Janet Browne, Christiane Groeben, Shigehisa Kuriyama, Maaike van der Lugt, Guido Giglioni, Lynn K. Nyhart, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Ariane Dröscher, Warwick Anderson, Peder Anker, Mathias Grote, Lucy van de Wiel. "Cycles and circulation: a theme in the history of biology and medicine." History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.69324

2021. “The Speculative Turn in IVF: Egg Freezing, Reproductive Futures, and the Financialization of Fertility.” In: Birthing Techno-Sapiens: Human-Technology Co-Evolution and the Future of Reproduction. Ed. Robbie Davis-Floyd. Routledge. (revised reprint)

2020. Freezing Fertility: Oocyte Cryopreservation and the Gender Politics of Ageing. New York: New York University Press. https://nyupress.org/9781479817900/freezing-fertility/

2020. with Jack Wilkinson, Pantelitsa Athanasiou, and Joyce Harper. “The Prevalence, Promotion and Pricing of Three IVF Add-Ons on Fertility Clinic Websites.” Reproductive BioMedicine Online, July. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rbmo.2020.07.021.

2020. "The Speculative Turn in IVF: Egg Freezing and the Financialisation of Fertility." New Genetics and Society. Special Issue "Frozen: Social and Bioethical Aspects of Cryo-Fertility." 
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14636778.2019.1709430 

2019. "The Datafication of Reproduction: Time-lapse Embryo Imaging and the Commercialisation of IVF." Sociology of Health and Illness. 41(S1): 193-209. Special Issue "Digital Health." https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9566.12881

2018. “Prenatal Imaging: Egg Freezing, Embryo Selection and the Visual Politics of Reproductive Time.” Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience 4(2): 1-35. https://doi.org/10.28968/cftt.v4i2.29908 

2018. with Risa Cromer. “Remaking Reproduction Conference: A Review” Somatosphere http://somatosphere.net/2018/08/remaking-reproduction-conference-a-revie... 

2018. with Professor Joyce Harper, Dr Kylie Baldwin, Dr Lucy Van de Wiel and Professor Jacky Boivin. “Campaign for UK Parliament to extend the 10-year storage limit on egg freezing. Bionews.  https://www.bionews.org.uk/page_135508

2016. “Embryonic Entanglements: A Visual Analysis of Time-lapse Embryo Imaging.” Assisted Reproduction Across Borders: Feminist Perspectives on Normalizations, Disruptions and Transmissions. Eds. Merete Lie and Nina Lykke. New York and Oxon: Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/products/9781138674646

2016. "Frozen Fertility" ["Bevroren Vruchtbaarheid"]. Dutch Journal for Gender Studies. 19 (2): 286-8. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/aup/tgen/2016/00000019/00000002/art00010

2015. “Freezing in Anticipation: Eggs for Later.” Women’s Studies International Forum. 53 (November-December): 119-128. 
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02775395/53

2014. “For Whom the Clock Ticks: Reproductive Ageing and Egg Freezing in Dutch and British News Media.” Studies in the Maternal. 6 (1). 
http://www.mamsie.bbk.ac.uk/articles/abstract/10.16995/sim.4/

2014. “The Time of the Change: Menopause’s Medicalization and the Gender Politics of Aging.” International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics. 7 (1): 74-98. doi: 10.2979/intjfemappbio.7.1.74
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/intjfemappbio.7.1.74

2007 Book Review: “The Laws of Love by Peter Goodrich.” Law, Culture and the Humanities. 3: 495-497. doi: 10.1177/17438721070030031002
http://lch.sagepub.com/content/3/3/495.short

Research Associate
Dr. Lucy  van de Wiel

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