Medical Humanities Research Centre (MHRC)

Anna McFarlane has a new open access article out in BMJ Medical Humanities entitled ‘Genre bleed, reproduction and the climate crisis in Louisa Hall’s Reproduction (2023)’. The article is published as part of a special issue, edited by and featuring members of the University of Lancaster’s Wellcome Trust-funded Future of Human Reproduction project, with whom Anna has been working as a Visiting Collaborator since 2023. The article discusses Louisa Hall’s use of genre in a novel that deals with reproductive themes through reference to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a dystopian style, and a setting that engages the contemporary politics of the USA. Ultimately it argues that the field of medical humanities uses illness experiences as literary ‘forms’, using Caroline Levine’s expansive understanding of the term.

First published: 5 March 2026