Isabel Davis

The Year When Pregnancy Was a Fashion Statement For one strange year in the 18th century, flaunting a false pregnancy was all the rage.

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")

Yes. Amazing. Can we get an update on the Singapore wirecard-related trial? Ft gave us a mid-trial piece in Feb. But nothing on the outcome. What's happened?

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

Such a beautiful book JA. Who wouldn't want it in their window? They're super lucky to have a window to put it in.

I love this Grace! I should have known it was you.

Look what came in the post for me 2 beautiful books by @jackashby.bsky.social and @taoleighgoffe.bsky.social

Looking forward to reading both.

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.

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.

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...

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

Achene fibres such a bane though.

I think this is the coolest thing I've ever discovered... www.isabeldavis.co.uk/resources/ar...

#TudorPortraits

Thank you!

Like the moth corners.

Rethinking the Armada Portrait — Isabel Davis

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

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...

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

And a shout out to @drbeldavis.bsky.social whose book Conceiving Histories was the topic of the review and which sounds amazing.

Thank you Nora! Glad it inadvertently captures your family story.

It's wonderful!

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'.

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

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...

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...

Daily reminder.

Thanks Karl! My book is good and freq funny too.
& - bonus - I discuss men's history as well as women's.

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...

"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:

Of course I mean its, no apostrophe.

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

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...

"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...

‘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...