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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).

www.nhm.ac.uk

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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.

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Isabel Davis @drbeldavis.bsky.social · Aug 8

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

Reposted by Isabel Davis

MIT Press @mitpress.bsky.social · Jul 14

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

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Isabel Davis @drbeldavis.bsky.social · Jun 20

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?

Isabel Davis @drbeldavis.bsky.social · May 27

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

Isabel Davis @drbeldavis.bsky.social · May 27

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.

Isabel Davis @drbeldavis.bsky.social · May 27

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

Isabel Davis @drbeldavis.bsky.social · May 22

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

Looking forward to reading both.

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Reposted by Isabel Davis

Richard Fallon @richardfallon.bsky.social · May 15

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.

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Isabel Davis @drbeldavis.bsky.social · May 13

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.

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Reposted by Isabel Davis

Stephanie Holt @stephholtnh.bsky.social · May 9

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

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Isabel Davis @drbeldavis.bsky.social · May 13

Achene fibres such a bane though.

Isabel Davis @drbeldavis.bsky.social · May 13

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

#TudorPortraits

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Isabel Davis @drbeldavis.bsky.social · May 12

Thank you!

Isabel Davis @drbeldavis.bsky.social · May 12

Like the moth corners.

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Isabel Davis @drbeldavis.bsky.social · May 12

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

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Isabel Davis @drbeldavis.bsky.social · May 9

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...

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Isabel Davis @drbeldavis.bsky.social · May 1

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

Reposted by Isabel Davis

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.

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Isabel Davis @drbeldavis.bsky.social · Apr 30

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

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.

Isabel Davis @drbeldavis.bsky.social · Apr 30

It's wonderful!

Isabel Davis @drbeldavis.bsky.social · Apr 30

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'.

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

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Isabel Davis @drbeldavis.bsky.social · Apr 30

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

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Reposted by Isabel Davis

Richard Fallon @richardfallon.bsky.social · Apr 29

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

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Reposted by Isabel Davis

Richard Fallon @richardfallon.bsky.social · Apr 29

Daily reminder.

Richard Fallon @richardfallon.bsky.social · Apr 4

It's here.

Box of copies of Contesting Earth's History in Transatlantic Literary Culture, 1860–1935, sitting on a bench.

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