The History of Generation: Towards a Fuller Story

This roundtable puts the spotlight on ‘generation’—the capacious conceptual framework within which issues of procreation and descent were discussed across large swathes of the globe before modernity. Eventually replaced by the apparatus of ‘reproduction’, which has grabbed most of the attention, ‘generation’ has a long and complex history of its own. The key notions of productive seed and foetal formation, debates about male and female contribution and ensoulment initially took shape in the ancient Mediterranean world, spread across the Roman Empire and Christianised, travelled further east with the Arab conquests of the seventh century CE, and continuing expansion of Islamic domains, journeyed west with early modern European colonialism, shifting and adapting along the way. Building on the story recently sketched out in Hopwood, Flemming and Kassell (eds), 2018, we propose to take this opportunity to widen and deepen the conversation about pre-modern theories and practices around procreation, about their coherence and diversity, about the causes of both continuity and change. Invited participants are specialists in different periods, from the ancient near east (Steinert), through the Roman (Bonnell Freidin) and Medieval (van der Lugt) worlds, into the early Modern (Astbury), and come at the study of generation from different angles. Each will speak briefly (c. 8 min) to open, offering a view from their areas of study, a summary of the current state of play and how it fits into the bigger picture. The audience will then be encouraged to join the discussion, offering additional perspectives. Flemming will moderate.