Isabel Davis
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drbeldavis.bsky.social
Isabel Davis
@drbeldavis.bsky.social
7.4K followers 2.5K following 180 posts
Historian @ Natural History Museum, research on repro history, nat history, collections.
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/people/isabel-davis.html
Book: Conceiving Histories: Trying for Pregnancy, Past & Present MIT Press.
🐁 lover (someone's got to be).
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drbeldavis.bsky.social
Isabel Davis @drbeldavis.bsky.social · Mar 4
Dear BlueSky,

Please widely share that my book is out today. 🚀 It tells wild & wonderful, (& arrestingly illustrated) little-known histories from the reproductive frontline. It is a history like no other and like any other, ie brill & for any history lover anywhere.

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👇🏾
The cover of my beautiful new book, Conceiving Histories. Black and white photo collage of a naked woman arms crossed riding a guppy side-saddle, in front of a moon. Title is in coral pink. Names of author and illustrator in white.
drbeldavis.bsky.social
jobs.royalholloway.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...
Job Opportunity at Royal Holloway University of London: Postdoctoral Research Associate (16th-18th century focus) - Inclusive Histories
Full-time, Fixed Term (12 months)Applications are invited for the post of Postdoctoral Research Associate in the School of Humanities.Inclusive Histories is a collaborative research and schools engage...
jobs.royalholloway.ac.uk
August 8, 2025 at 10:38 AM
Reposted by Isabel Davis
mitpress.bsky.social
For one strange year in the 18th century, flaunting a false pregnancy was all the rage.

(An excerpt from @drbeldavis.bsky.social's book "Conceiving Histories")
The Year When Pregnancy Was a Fashion Statement
For one strange year in the 18th century, flaunting a false pregnancy was all the rage.
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
July 14, 2025 at 4:53 PM
drbeldavis.bsky.social
Everybody medievally inclined in cent. London - Friday is a great day. Check out the Birkbeck Medieval Seminar.

Followed by:
www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event...

Followed by the Matthews Lecture on the Medieval & Modern Fertility industry

Free, but book. See you there!

#medievalresearchseminars
Birkbeck Medieval Seminar 2025: "Medieval Economic Imaginaries"
Join us for the 2025 Birkbeck Medieval Seminar for a discussion of Medieval Economic Imaginaries.
www.bbk.ac.uk
May 27, 2025 at 9:42 PM
drbeldavis.bsky.social
Look what came in the post for me 2 beautiful books by @jackashby.bsky.social and @taoleighgoffe.bsky.social

Looking forward to reading both.
May 22, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Reposted by Isabel Davis
richardfallon.bsky.social
At @nhm-london.bsky.social Collections and Culture we've become a bit obsessed with finding historical 'named animals'. Here's Maurice Wilson's 1955 painting of Rota the lion, who lived at @zslofficial.bsky.social's London Zoo 1940–1955. © the copyright holder. Credit: Zoological Society of London.
May 15, 2025 at 7:14 AM
drbeldavis.bsky.social
I enjoyed collaborating with the Big Fat Negative newsletter, writing a guest post on the consolations of history.

The image is one of Anna Burel's collages for our book Conceiving Histories
@mitpress.bsky.social

#consolationsofhistory

open.substack.com/pub/bigfatne...
Photo collage of a woman wearing a red fallopian hat, tied with a red bow under her chin, the fallopian tubes make it rather like a jester's hat. The ovaries are like bells. She holds her finger to her lips because this image illustrates a section of my book about women's secrets. The photo is black and white. The background a pistachio ice-cream green colour.
May 13, 2025 at 10:05 PM
Reposted by Isabel Davis
stephholtnh.bsky.social
Day 2 of #NatSCA2025 @natsca.bsky.social is up and running! I’m speaking later on behalf of @curioustravellers.bsky.social and the @nhm-london.bsky.social Thomas Pennant Collections #HistoryOfNaturalHistory #NaturalHistoryMuseums
May 9, 2025 at 9:23 AM
drbeldavis.bsky.social
I think this is the coolest thing I've ever discovered... www.isabeldavis.co.uk/resources/ar...

#TudorPortraits
May 13, 2025 at 7:59 AM
drbeldavis.bsky.social
I enjoyed making this resource, which shows the relationship between the famous Armada portrait of Elizabeth I and a sea chart or portolan map. www.isabeldavis.co.uk/resources/ar...

#TudorHistory
Rethinking the Armada Portrait — Isabel Davis
www.isabeldavis.co.uk
May 12, 2025 at 8:36 PM
drbeldavis.bsky.social
Looking forward to giving the William Matthews Lecture on 30th May 6-7.30pm at Birkbeck, University of London, Torrington Square WC1E 7JL.

I'm talking to the title:
In Vitro: The Fertility Industry Medieval and Modern.

Come!

Tickets are free but you need to book: www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event...
May 9, 2025 at 4:57 PM
drbeldavis.bsky.social
I really enjoyed talking to Kyle Kellems at KUAF radio when I visited Fayetteville AR. Radio is such a cool medium. I grew up with it and still really like it.

You can catch my interview with him here: www.kuaf.com
KUAF Public Radio
KUAF | 91.3 Public Radio
www.kuaf.com
May 1, 2025 at 5:33 PM
Reposted by Isabel Davis
norahowley.bsky.social
And a shout out to @drbeldavis.bsky.social whose book Conceiving Histories was the topic of the review and which sounds amazing.
April 30, 2025 at 9:06 PM
drbeldavis.bsky.social
Thank you Nora! Glad it inadvertently captures your family story.
norahowley.bsky.social Nora Howley @norahowley.bsky.social · Apr 30
And a shout out to @drbeldavis.bsky.social whose book Conceiving Histories was the topic of the review and which sounds amazing.
April 30, 2025 at 9:52 PM
drbeldavis.bsky.social
Yes! And I emailed your mother because I really enjoyed reading Edward Elkan's memoir in the @wellcomecollection.bsky.social and writing about it in my book 'Conceiving Histories' (the subject of the @lrb.co.uk review). We waved at each other from each side of the 'pond'.
illdottore.bsky.social Joseph Howley @illdottore.bsky.social · Apr 30
Proud of my mother who is published in the London Review of Books today with this chapter from our family's history! www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Worth Trying Erin Maglaque mentions the use of the frog Xenopus laevis in pregnancy testing (LRB, 17 April). The introduction of this technique in London was the work of my great-uncle, the physician and herpetologist Edward Elkan (1895-1983). A refugee from Nazi Germany, he retrained as a doctor and went into practice just before the beginning of the Second World War. In his unpublished memoir, he describes reading about the discovery of this use of the frog by Lancelot Hogben in South Africa. He decided it was worth trying in England because the existing test was ‘cumbersome, expensive and needed hecatombs of young mice’. He ordered his first hundred frogs from South Africa and set them up in an aquarium on his balcony, where they thrived on emulsified liver from the butcher. But when the war broke out, he like many other Jewish refugees was interned, and the frogs were sent to other homes. After the war, he reclaimed the frogs. In the memoir he writes that the test had become quite acceptable in medical practice, and that he had a substantial clientele. In 1970 the Department of Health took over pregnancy diagnosis and the frogs were transferred to a laboratory at what was then called Shrodell’s Hospital in Watford. Elkan took on a part-time position overseeing the laboratory; at its peak there were about five thousand frogs there. Nora L. Howley Silver Spring, Maryland
April 30, 2025 at 8:05 PM
drbeldavis.bsky.social
My letter to the @lrb.co.uk following a full and positive review of my book 'Conceiving Histories' in the last issue. I don't think people were calmer about uncertainty in the past, rather they were better able to acknowledge it.
#HistMed
April 30, 2025 at 5:33 PM
Reposted by Isabel Davis
richardfallon.bsky.social
Turns out my article on 'Imaginary Megalosaurs in Nineteenth-Century Literature', part of a starry special issue on the bicentenary of the naming of this 'first' dinosaur, came out last week in Earth Sciences History: doi.org/10.17704/194...
IMAGINARY MEGALOSAURS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE
ABSTRACT. This paper tracks both famous and previously overlooked appearances of the premiere predatory dinosaur—Megalosaurus—in nineteenth-century imaginative literature, especially fiction. In so do...
doi.org
April 29, 2025 at 12:36 PM
Reposted by Isabel Davis
richardfallon.bsky.social
Daily reminder.
April 29, 2025 at 7:15 AM
drbeldavis.bsky.social
Thanks Karl! My book is good and freq funny too.
& - bonus - I discuss men's history as well as women's.
karlgalle.bsky.social Karl Galle @karlgalle.bsky.social · Apr 28
This is a good and frequently very funny review of @drbeldavis.bsky.social's book "Conceiving Histories," likely of interest to historians of medicine and women's history scholars. 📗 #earlymodern #histmed
lrb.co.uk London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · Apr 28
‘The womb – hidden, female, clammy – inspired countless misogynistic fantasies. In early modern thinking, generation inside the womb was not far removed from putrefaction.’

@erinmaglaque.bsky.social on the history of conception and pregnancy: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
April 28, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Reposted by Isabel Davis
mitpress.bsky.social
"The dreamy, associative nature of the book sinks the reader into the uncertain and indeterminate state of trying to conceive, of early pregnancy, of miscarriage."

@lrb.co.uk reviews "Conceiving Histories" by @drbeldavis.bsky.social:
Erin Maglaque · Frog-Free: Conception Stories
I can take a home pregnancy test only eight days after ovulation and discover that I have conceived, the wondering...
www.lrb.co.uk
April 28, 2025 at 7:03 PM
drbeldavis.bsky.social
Looking forward to taking part in this year's Generation Hope programme at the Natural History Museum. My event on 3rd May is on reproductive health histories. We'll be talking about empire and it's legacies. Sign up:
www.nhm.ac.uk/events/from-...

#histmed
April 22, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Reposted by Isabel Davis
mitpress.bsky.social
"For every fairy tale that deals with the child’s question about where babies come from, another teaches us that the quest for knowledge entails loss."

@lrb.co.uk reviews "Conceiving Histories," @drbeldavis.bsky.social's elegant history of fertility and infertility:
Erin Maglaque · Frog-Free: Conception Stories
I can take a home pregnancy test only eight days after ovulation and discover that I have conceived, the wondering...
www.lrb.co.uk
April 20, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Reposted by Isabel Davis
lrb.co.uk
‘A woman “should turn her eyes towards heaven”, Lodovico Domenichi wrote in 1549, not towards the earth “as beasts do”. If her orgasm was required for conception, she ought to be looking at God when she came.’

@erinmaglaque.bsky.social on the history of conception: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Erin Maglaque · Frog-Free: Conception Stories
I can take a home pregnancy test only eight days after ovulation and discover that I have conceived, the wondering...
www.lrb.co.uk
April 13, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Reposted by Isabel Davis
lrb.co.uk
On the podcast: @erinmaglaque.bsky.social joins @moonjets.bsky.social to discuss how the understanding of conception has changed since the early modern period, what knowledge has been gained but also what may have been lost. Listen wherever you get podcasts, or here: www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and...
Podcast: Erin Maglaque and Thomas Jones · Conceiving Pregnancy
www.lrb.co.uk
April 17, 2025 at 7:22 AM
Reposted by Isabel Davis
mitpress.bsky.social
@drbeldavis.bsky.social, the author of "Conceiving Histories," joined BBC Woman's Hour to share fascinating stories about the history of conception. She talks using frogs for pregnancy tests, phantom pregnancies, & the brief fashion for looking pregnant even if you weren’t. Segment begins at 46:45:
BBC Audio | Woman's Hour | Friendships, Nursery safety, Sudan
Can friendships between three people work?
www.bbc.com
April 12, 2025 at 3:16 PM