History of Bodies, Sexualities and Reproduction

Members of this theme explore the history of bodies, sexuality and reproduction by focussing on examples from the prehistoric period up to the 20th century. A key focus of all research strands is the making of gendered bodies in different historical and cultural contexts.

The sub-theme will bring together several case studies. Archaeologists Chris Fowler and Kirsi Lorentz are examining material representations of the body in the European prehistoric period.  Early modern medical historian Cathy McClive studies the sexuality of the older woman in Early-Modern France and, in a second case study, metaphors, euphemisms and imagery used to refer to true and false conceptions in French medical texts from the 16th-18th centuries. The history of infertility in Britain from the mid-17th to the mid-19th century is the theme Helen Berry is researching. The principal investigator, medical historian Lutz Sauerteig, researches representations of the foetus in public media in the 20th century, and, together with a PhD student, the making of the heterosexual body in English and German sex and health education films.

Fowler and Lorentz investigate understandings of the body in European prehistory. They consider the different presentations and representations of bodies by examining physical transformations throughout life and re-presentation of bodies following death, as well as representations of the body through other material media including figurines. Not all European prehistoric contexts utilised all of these media: contrasts between different techniques of re-presentation are considered. These studies also consider the treatment of differently sexed bodies, and figurines representing the sexed and reproductive body.

Building on her previous project on menstruation, McClive studies the sexuality of the older woman in Early-Modern France. Little research has been conducted on the sexual health and sexual histories of older and menopausal women in the early modern period. Based on printed and manuscript medical texts alongside marital advice-literature and casuistic texts from the 16th-18th centuries, this strand explores the acceptability and desirability of sexual activity for older women in early-modern France with regard to contemporary notions of health, procreation and conjugal duty.

Based on qualitative analysis of a wide range of primary evidence, Berry in collaboration with Elizabeth Foyster (Cambridge) is researching the history of infertility in Britain from the mid-17th to the mid-19th century. This project arises from their research on men without children. Much existing work has focused on the quantitative demographic implications of fertility (e.g. the CamPop group) or on later periods. The project pays close attention to attitudes, experiences and solutions in relation to infertility. It situates infertility in the wider historical and cultural context of medical, legal and moral dilemmas using medico-legal and literary sources as well as visual representations of infertile men and women.

Textual and visual representations of the foetus provide a central focus for a number of case studies.Building on her previous work on the foetus and pregnancy, McClive studies early-modern French medical texts (16th-18th centuries) to trace the development of attitudes towards and understandings of false conceptions. In contrast to monstrous births which have been the topic of much scholarly interest, false conceptions remain under-investigated; McClive examines them in the context of attitudes towards procreation in general and the uncertainties surrounding the female body in particular. In contrast to the visual representation of the foetus in anatomy handbooks up to the 19th century which have been widely researched, the 20th century has – with the exception of the history of ultrasound – received only some attention, despite a revolution in the photographic representation of the foetus in the 1960s/70s in public media. Sauerteig traces the narratives of these images and studies the wider cultural context within which it became necessary to publish foetal images for a general public, e.g. in sex education, pregnancy advice, anti-abortion movements.  Wilberding (now at Ruhr Universität Bochum) researched the status of the embryo/foetus as a human being in Antiquity. Principal issues concerned the identity of the soul responsible for forming the embryo and the relation of the embryo to the mother.