Christina Benninghaus joined the Interdisciplinary Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Bielefeld in January 2022. From 2017 to 2021, she taught at Wadham College, University of Oxford, as Pat Thompson DAAD Fellow and Tutor in Modern History.
Christina Benninghaus studied history and philosophy at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. She graduated from the University of Warwick and did her PhD at the European University Institute at Florence. She taught at the Universities of Halle-Wittenberg, Bielefeld, Bochum and Gießen. From 2012-2014, she was a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science in Cambridge.
Infertility as a gendered experience
For many years I have been working on different aspects of infertility in historical perspective. I am interested in how the experience of not being able to have children changed historically. To this end, I examine sociocultural constructs of parenthood, medical concepts of reproduction and (in)fertility, conceptions of the body and bodily experiences, forms of treatment, religious ideas, and practices of social parenting such as foster parenthood and adoption.
I am currently working on an essay on "Artificial Insemination in the Postwar Period: Debates, Images, Narratives, 1945-1970" as well as on a text on the "Invention of the Adoptable Child, 1870-1930."
In addition to my empirical research, I am concerned with theoretical and methodological questions regarding the future of gender history as an academic subject within and outside of gender studies. I am particularly interested in the significance of images for the social communication of and about gender and in the critical reflection of core concepts in gender studies.
“The Archenemy of Fertility” - Gonorrhea and Infertility, Germany 1870–1935, in: Simon Szreter, Hg., The Hidden Affliction: Sexually Transmitted Infections and Infertility in History. Rochester (NY) 2019, 305-340.
Modern Infertility, in: Rebecca Flemming, Nick Hopwood und Lauren Kassel, Hg., Reproduction. Antiquity to the Present Day. Cambridge 2018, 457-470.
Silences: Coping with Infertility in 19th century Germany, in: Gayle Davis und Tracey Loughran, Hg., The Palgrave Handbook of Infertility in History: Approaches, Contexts and Perspectives, Basingstoke 2017, 99-122.
„Ich warte den ganzen Tag darauf, daß Du Dich mit mir beschäftigst, daß Du Dich in mich hineindenkst.“ Ehe und Liebe in den 1920er Jahren, in: Sandra Maß und Xenia von Tippelskirch, Hg., Faltenwürfe der Geschichte, Frankfurt a.M. 2014, S. 98-111.
“No, thank you, Mr Stork!” – Voluntary childlessness in Weimar and Contemporary Germany, in: Studies of the Maternal, 6 (1), 1-36. doi.org/10.16995/sim.8
Beyond constructivism? Gender, medicine, and the early history of sperm testing, Germany 1870-1900, in: Gender & History, 24, 3, November 2012, 647-676.
Brennende Sehnsüchte, heimliche Ängste – Kinderlosigkeit, Vererbung und Adoption im naturalistischen Roman um 1900 in: zeitenblicke 7, Nr. 3, [2008], URL: www.zeitenblicke.de/2008/3/benninghaus/index_html, URN: urn:nbn:de:0009-9-16388
„Leider hat der Beteiligte fast niemals eine Ahnung davon..." - Männliche Unfruchtbarkeit, 1870-1900, in: Martin Dinges, Hg., Männlichkeit und Gesundheit im historischen Wandel 1850-2000, Stuttgart 2007, 139-155.
Great expectations – German debates about artificial insemination in humans around 1912, in: Studies in the History of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 38, 2007, 2, 374-392.
Kinderlosigkeit. Einleitung, Feministische Studien, 23, 2005, 1, 3-8.
Das Geschlecht der Generation. Zum Zusammenhang von Generationalität und Männlichkeit um 1930, in: Ulrike Jureit und Michael Wildt, Hg., Generationen. Zur Semantik eines sozialwissenschaftlichen Grundbegriffs, Hamburg 2005, 127-158.
Eine „unästhetische Prozedur“. Debatten über „Künstliche Befruchtung“ um 1912, in: Barbara Orland, Hg., Artifizielle Körper – Lebendige Technik. Technische Modellierungen des Körpers in historischer Perspektive, Zürich 2005, 107-127.
Reproductive medicine (historical and sociological perspectives),
Gender history, women's history
