Along with bioethicist Lisa Campo-Engelstein and ob-gyn Brian T. Nguyen, Yale sociology professor Rene Almeling has co-edited a new book titled Seminal: On Sperm Health Politics (New York University Press 2025). They assembled experts from across the social sciences, humanities, law, and medicine to offer a kaleidoscopic view of the relationship between sperm, health, and the intersecting politics of gender, race, and reproduction. The essays in this unprecedented collection cover a broad range of issues related to male reproductive and sexual health—including the latest technological developments for creating sperm; the specter of eugenics in contemporary medical markets; emerging approaches to male contraceptive methods, male infertility, and trans healthcare; controversies surrounding sperm donors and sperm banking; disparities in sexual health education for teens—all the while attending to the enormous variation in how individuals and societies understand, embody, and experience sperm. At a time when the most basic rights of reproductive autonomy are under severe threat, contributors to this volume argue this is precisely the moment to rethink and reimagine sperm from a variety of medical, political, and cultural perspectives. Ultimately, this volume aims to contribute to a more reproductively just society and broaden conversations around bodies, health and equity in the United States.
You can read the Introduction and view the Table of Contents on the NYU Press website here. https://nyupress.org/9781479834082/seminal/ ]. And you can read the Yale News Q&A with Professor Almeling about the book here. https://news.yale.edu/2025/06/17/new-perspectives-intersection-sperm-health-and-reproductive-politics ]