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Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · Sep 6

It was wonderful to contribute this week to this celebration of filmmaker @pratibha.bsky.social work at the ICA London.

A new book of essays by myself, Lola Olufemi, @alexispauline.bsky.social
& more is available; “a gift for any artist”researcher and activist

www.smingsming.com/products/our...

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Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · Sep 2

Here in Wales for a @bspsuk.bsky.social panel called “Public concern about low fertility: the 1920s and 2020s”. Packed hall and brilliant discussion!

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Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · Aug 18

Pretty fascinating study comparing mtDNA mutations in human blood, saliva and oocyte cells, showing how oocyte cells are the only ones that do not show an increase in mutations with age 👁 👁

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Allele frequency selection and no age-related increase in human oocyte mitochondrial mutations

Human oocyte mtDNA mutations do not increase with age and are selected against changes to minimize functional consequences.

www.science.org

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Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · Jun 16

It’s been just over a year of animation workshops, lab ethnographies and critical artistic research on the topic of reproductive crisis.

Pleased to share a sneak research update via the DOROTHY fellowship blog.
dorothy.ie/2025/06/10/d...
@researchireland.ie @uccresearch.bsky.social

Dr. Rebecca Close: Visualising Reproduction Through Science and Art | DOROTHY

My research is all about the role of images in creating knowledge about reproductive biology, and how time-lapse microscopy specifically has historically shaped how we

dorothy.ie

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Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · Jun 12

Great #repromob roundtable!

Clinicians experience alongside critiques of the ownership structures of global clinic chains.

Loved sharing my paper too on software fixes for fertility crisis.

More reproductive mobilities presentations today 🌱

Reposted by Rebecca Close

Sam Solomon @drsnax.bsky.social · Jun 1

"Them, All" is a really special thing – check out the whole thing and some shrubby poems from me, too.

Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · May 30

⚠️Issue # 5 now posted! ⚠️
Iona, Sam, QiP and noï share vital writing on erasure.

Them, All is a podcast and online magazine for poetry and critical writing on reproduction, hosted by Systerserver.

Read or listen here:

them-all-magazine.com/projects.html

them-all-magazine.com/podcast.html

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Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · May 30

⚠️Issue # 5 now posted! ⚠️
Iona, Sam, QiP and noï share vital writing on erasure.

Them, All is a podcast and online magazine for poetry and critical writing on reproduction, hosted by Systerserver.

Read or listen here:

them-all-magazine.com/projects.html

them-all-magazine.com/podcast.html

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Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · May 23

Calling reproduction people in and beyond London! Get your tickets to #ReproSalon next Friday 30th 🌅

a shining annual event to discuss and think through in community all things repro, organised by @lucyvandewiel.bsky.social

Lucy van de Wiel @lucyvandewiel.bsky.social · Apr 7

Another year, another #ReproSalon! It's time to come together again for a spectacular evening on the Bush House rooftop terrace, overlooking the gorgeous London sunset. 30 May. 🎉

Looking forward to reconnecting with #reproduction people in style. Tickets:

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/new-reprod...

New Reproduction Salon + New Reproductive Order Book Launch

The Reproduction Salon returns and we will launch the exciting new book The New Reproductive Order (NYU Press, 2025)

www.eventbrite.co.uk

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Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · May 19

Nice to see this mention of my work on facial matching algorithms for donor selection. Recommended new ethnographic scholarship on “enacting resemblance” in assisted reproduction in the Dutch context.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

“Not Too Different”: Doing Resemblance, Enacting Boundaries in Sperm Donor Matching For/By Dutch Intended Parents

Scholars writing about selecting gamete donors have emphasized the importance of resemblance when choosing a donor. However, while they have thoroughly researched the question of why prospective pa...

www.tandfonline.com

Reposted by Rebecca Close

Jonathan G. Heaney @jonathangheaney.bsky.social · May 8

Really enjoyed this paper, especially the use of a scifi narrative at the end.

Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · May 8

Looking forward to our panel today at the @sociologyireland.bsky.social . Thanks to colleagues for organising.

I’ll be talking about the limited “biological mode” of hypothetical thinking and switch on/off policy solutions for dealing with declining fertility rates in Europe.

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Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · May 8

Looking forward to our panel today at the @sociologyireland.bsky.social . Thanks to colleagues for organising.

I’ll be talking about the limited “biological mode” of hypothetical thinking and switch on/off policy solutions for dealing with declining fertility rates in Europe.

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Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · May 5

fellow DOROTHY MSCA colleague @fearoncassidy.bsky.social sums up this recent article on the soft eugenics of maga’s health market expansion, from her metabolic health research perspective.

Féaron Cassidy, PhD @fearoncassidy.bsky.social · May 5

“Soft” eugenics without social healthcare makes the quiet part loud - this isn’t about who is “fit”, and isn’t just racist, sexist and ableist, it ensures that healthfulness costs money. There is a lot of money to be made from treating preventable illnesses. Why spend less when you could spend more?

Prof Sheena Cruickshank @sheencr.bsky.social · May 5

Interesting if dystopian view of MAGA/MAHAv policies as soft eugenics

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Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · Apr 26

“They do not know us, and can never name us”
🙏🏼

www.thenation.com/article/soci...

The UK’s Anti-Trans Ruling Is a Defeat for All Women

Even the self-described feminists celebrating the Supreme Court’s attempt to banish trans people from womanhood will pay a heavy price.

www.thenation.com

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Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · Apr 12

A little reminder that Francis Galton coined the term “co-relation” 😱

lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-...

The “Correlation” Between Statistics and Eugenics | Los Angeles Review of Books

In the second essay of the Legacies of Eugenics series, Aubrey Clayton excavates the troubling correlation between the birth of statistical methods and the history of eugenics.

lareviewofbooks.org

Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · Apr 11

Beautiful workshop! We talked about animation and the politics of the body + life and made some brilliant and funny films that give voice to the elements.

Thanks to Hamaca in Barcelona for co-coordinating, loved sharing ongoing postdoc work.
@researchireland.bsky.social
@uccresearch.bsky.social

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Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · Mar 22

Current right-wing + far right backlash against choice and sex/gender equality is worryingly reflected in key public health policy statement at this year’s 69th Commission on the Status of Women at the UN, which omits sexual and reproductive health commitments for the first time since 1995.

The Guardian @theguardian.com · Mar 22

A tale of two conferences: women against women as ‘poison of patriarchy’ returns and abortion fight intensifies

Last week, anti-choice campaigners emboldened by current US politics met in New York at the same time as UN delegates gathered to address the widespread inequalities women face. The battle to protect rights has never felt more urgent In a meeting room on the 27th floor of a swish Manhattan hotel, Denise Mountenay is telling the audience that the right to abortion is “Nazi thinking.” Mountenay regrets her own abortions, and says she has been called by God to spread the word that she and other women “were lied to, deceived, pressured into making the most horrible choice: to choose death instead of life”. She goes on to list reasons why abortion is “not a safe procedure. [That’s what] they want woman to think – that is a lie.” Continue reading...

www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Rebecca Close

Liberating Histories @liberatinghistorys.bsky.social · Mar 3

Excited to announce that ‘Networks of queer reproduction in Sappho magazine (1972-81)’ by Rebecca Close is out now 🌐✨

This piece is part of our special issue on Feminist
Media in Transition for the Journal of Gender Studies

Read it here!
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Networks of queer reproduction in Sappho magazine (1972–1981)

In 1978 the London Evening News ran a series of ‘exposés’ on the UK lesbian organization and magazine Sappho and their Artificial Insemination by Donor (A.I.D) network. This article situates the Sa...

www.tandfonline.com

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Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · Feb 4

🌟 New article on UK magazine Sappho and their 1970s proto-fertility clinic🌟

An infrastructural reading of breaking apart reproduction 🛠 looking back from Them, All magazine, hooked to Systerserver.

Reflections on networks, imagination and scale.

👀 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Networks of queer reproduction in Sappho magazine (1972–1981)

In 1978 the London Evening News ran a series of ‘exposés’ on the UK lesbian organization and magazine Sappho and their Artificial Insemination by Donor (A.I.D) network. This article situates the Sa...

www.tandfonline.com

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Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · Jan 31

The under-reported side of the fertility crisis: elderly life and care.

“Family building” programs, however progressive, could also shift focus and attend to a necessary radical transformation of elderly life, including better wages for care workers.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

You might live to be 100. Are you ready?

A demographic change is unfolding, and many of us can expect a long life. It’s time to provide the support needed

www.theguardian.com

Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · Jan 28

This quote from The Uses of the Erotic (1978).

Audre Lorde may have read the current media / techbro gathering around the fascist salute as a continuation of the “Euroamerican tradition where needs are fulfilled by certain proscribed erotic comings-together, whether religion…or mob violence…”

Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · Jan 21

Spam for president! @grantamag.bsky.social

I got to share a Ludd Gang issue with this legend.

poetshardshipfunduk.com/about/

Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · Jan 21

It was so fruitful to share this work on algorithms as fertility world fixed capital at the @histmat.bsky.social london and barcelona conferences and @uccresearch.bsky.social last year.

The full article is now online open access here 🍑 🍒

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The Fertility Fix: the Boom in Facial-matching Algorithms for Donor Selection in Assisted Reproduction in Spain

This article reads the uptake of facial-matching algorithms by fertility clinics in Spain through the lens of ‘the fertility fix’: a software fix to the social reconfiguration of kinship and a fixe...

www.tandfonline.com

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Reposted by Rebecca Close

Alex Stoffel @stoffelalex.bsky.social · Jan 15

I thought I’d start putting together a list for people working within queer and trans Marxism.

Please let me know if that’s you, so I can add you!

go.bsky.app/6sdaeHP

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Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · Jan 17

Fertility crisis headlines continue to cite Total Fertility Rates (TFRs) + the second demographic transition. These are highly contested hypothesis and measures of decline that sneak in modern-colonial imaginations of nation state, immigration, gender and reproduction.

www.ft.com/content/f0d2...

Birth rates in rich countries halve to hit record low

Steep decline in fertility will ‘change face of societies’ and affect growth prospects, says OECD

www.ft.com

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Rebecca Close @rebecca-close.bsky.social · Jan 7

How does social and biological reproduction become the material of public governance and policy?

Great that such questions are being anthologised anew for today’s repro-techno-world.
New book affirming the value of comparative studies of policy.
@hannahzagel.bsky.social
@ralmeling.bsky.social

Hannah Zagel @hannahzagel.bsky.social · Nov 19

Our book is out! It will be available open access soon. Read about reproduction policy in the welfare state from various comparative perspectives.

www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/rep...

Reproduction Policy in the Twenty-First Century

‘This book is truly going somewhere new, elucidating reproduction policy as a field of study and critically integrating it into comparative welfare state research. It shines an original light on an un...

www.e-elgar.com

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