Blog Post 15

I was particularly interested in a section from Isabella’s readings. In “Menstruation by Forty”, the narrator contemplates at one point how their child will look and turn out. They particularly focus on the child’s connection to their ancestry, the way in which a long history of genes will come together to form a unique made up of all the history behind them. The narrator connects genes to historical experiences, contemplating if historical experiences imprint themselves onto inherited genes. They contemplate if they will have the survival experiences of a “slavic peasent” or the working hands of a “Yugoslavian”. It contemplates the degree to which epigenetics is an actuating force in forming a new human being.