Ulla Libre ’25 has spent the last year conceptualizing, developing and crafting her creative writing thesis on the forced sterilization of women in Denmark in the 60s. The nonfiction piece — supervised by creative writing professor Jeff Sharlet — explores the history and stories of the spiral case, wherein the government ordered non-consensual fitting of intrauterine devices in Inuit women and girls. Libre spent three weeks abroad in Greenland and Copenhagen, conducting interviews and research for her thesis. Her writing grapples with the question of choice and autonomy through personal narratives — both others’ and her own.
Can you tell me about the historical context of colonization in Greenland and the spiral case?
UL: Greenland was a colony of Denmark. It became a colony of Denmark in the late 1700s after this missionary, Hans Egede, colonized it. But notably, the main population there is Inuit, and they’ve been there since the late 900s. They had really figured out how to live there. Then the Danes came in the 1700s, and in 1953, Denmark granted Greenland freedom from their colonial relationship but then just integrated Greenland into the Kingdom of Denmark. After that, there were all these modernization policies, like we see kind of everywhere in post-colonial dynamics.
One of the prongs of this modernization policy was the family planning campaign. It was a cultural norm in Greenland to have seven or eight children. And so the Danish government [said]: ‘if we’re going to have them be a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, we have to figure out a way to suppress the population.’ They felt that having people take pills wasn’t going to be effective, because people would maybe forget to take pills. This was also at a time when they were just beginning to pioneer the IUD.
What experiences inspired you to write your thesis on the spiral case?
UL: I originally had been wanting to write my thesis on love and wanted to write a series of love stories. I did an awesome internship this summer with the help of the Dickey Center, where I was working in Northern Norway at this Indigenous peoples festival. I was helping them set up a decolonial art exhibit. One of the artists who was presenting work at this exhibit — I developed this friendship with her. She was telling me about the different art exhibits that she’s done. She was like, ‘yeah, I did this art exhibit about the spiral IUD campaign.’ And I had never heard of that.
I thought, ‘okay, that is actually what I want to write about,’ channeling love as a lens and thinking about the different ways that people are developing care and connection. How they bolstered their relationships with each other through this horrific event.
How was the process of finding people to interview and having these conversations with them?
UL: People really wanted to talk about it. I was expecting people to be like, ‘I’m good, I don’t really want to be interviewed.’ But people were really, really willing to talk. My strategy for interviewing people in general was handling it with great care and treating it as, ‘I really respect you, and thank you for telling me your story.’
I think the hardest interviews were the interviews of the women who had been fitted with IUDs, because the two women that I’d talked to that were fitted with IUDs both really only spoke Greenlandic, and they were translated by one of the women’s daughters.
How was working with your thesis advisor Professor Sharlet?
UL: He is a really special person. I think his capacity for empathy is really, really, really unique. He was incredibly helpful, is just unabashedly in my corner and makes me feel so seen and heard.
I think Jeff Sharlet has totally changed the trajectory of my life. If Dartmouth has been about anything, it’s about this mentorship relationship that I have. It’s been so special.
What do you hope readers take away from your thesis?
UL: Part of this thesis that really meant a lot to me was thinking back to these women who are fitted with these IUDs. What are the lines in their faces? What does it feel like to hear them tell me this story through the mouth of her daughter? What does it actually feel like to be there and to hear this from these people?
I think [it’s] important in this case of sterilization, and also just in any story ever, to think about the physical body of the person that is telling the story to you, and to kind of slip into their mind and to slip into their experience. And so that is my goal with the piece. I want people to feel like they have slipped into the experience of these people, and that they are able to see the humanity in this story.
What are your plans for the future of this piece and your writing practice?
UL: I think it’s not finished, and I am hoping to get an MFA in creative nonfiction. I’m really interested in developing it into a greater novel or greater work about sterilization and bodies. I think there are so many directions that I want this piece to go that I do not have the time to go within my thesis.
Do you have any advice for prospective creative writing students?
UL: I think the creative writing faculty and department here is amazing. I think it’s a totally unique situation. They do a really phenomenal job of bolstering a really tight knit cohort of students.
If you have an itch about something, follow that itch; you only have so much time here.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
