“When the Quaker women stood doused in blood at St. Paul’s, they made a sensational, ominous scene; but then, seventeenth-century Londoners were used to that.” — @erinmaglaque.bsky.social

Erin Maglaque (@erinmaglaque.bsky.social) on the radical prophetesses of seventeenth-century England

‘Caravaggio exploits dress not so much as a language, but as a way of posing the question: what is it we’re most susceptible to? A scrap of fur? A feather on a thigh? Hard, burnished armour?’ @erinmaglaque.bsky.social on Caravaggio’s clothes. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

On the latest episode of the podcast, @erinmaglaque.bsky.social joins Thomas Jones (@moonjets.bsky.social) to discuss the ways that Caravaggio represented his models’ bodies on canvas and what makes his paintings so unnerving. Listen here: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

In which @erinmaglaque.bsky.social and I are unnerved by Caravaggio podcasts.apple.com/en/podcast/t...

‘Caravaggio refused to sentimentalise sex, just as he refused to sentimentalise faith. He painted the surrender involved in both, if you’re doing it right.’ @erinmaglaque.bsky.social on Caravaggio’s clothes. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Looking forward @erinmaglaque.bsky.social’s “Presence: A Hidden History of the Female Body” and this is one hell of a read. Never regret my @lrb.co.uk subscription, btw.

‘Caravaggio exploits dress not so much as a language, but as a way of posing the question: what is it we’re most susceptible to? A scrap of fur? A feather on a thigh? Hard, burnished armour?’ @erinmaglaque.bsky.social on Caravaggio’s clothes. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Issue 48.04 is now online, featuring: Jackson Lears on the political strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski Michael Dobson on Christopher Marlowe Alexander Bevilacqua at Noah’s Ark @erinmaglaque.bsky.social on Caravaggio and @piercepenniless.bsky.social on Peter Mandelson. Read online at www.lrb.co.uk

Important new research by Giuliana Freschi and Maria Enrica Virgillito on wages paid to wet nurses by the Innocenti across the C18th. Their findings resonate with my own published in JMH - that foundling homes institutionalized an exploitative care chain. www.lem.sssup.it/WPLem/files/...

I'm a @bardcollege.bsky.social alum. He's got to go www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/u...

Quotes for PRESENCE ✨

This will be *fantastic*

This article is the best I have read so far this year and I think it will keep that award until the end of the year. It is a hard, painful read, but so well described and flipping the historiographical table. It keeps me thinking about what a sustained comparison with Protestant regions would bring.

My book, PRESENCE: A Hidden History of the Female Body is out in June with Cape in the UK and with Astra House in the US. If you're an editor / reviewer / etc, let me know if you'd like to be on the list for an advance copy.

And over the next few months we've got four more sessions coming up: 'Written Worlds' with me et al; 'Material Culture of Wills' with @lsangha.bsky.social; and the postmortem caesarian section in early modern Italy with Erin Maglaque @erinmaglaque.bsky.social : www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

I'm very proud of this piece, and so so grateful to Julie and the other JMH reviewers for making it better. If you'd like to read and can't access elsewhere, dm for a pdf ❤️‍🔥

I have a new article out in JMH. It's about wet-nursing, care work, and infant mortality in early modern Catholic Europe. It's also a reflection on how we ought to do feminist history post-Dobbs. I have a (separate) link for 50 free pdfs – dm me! www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

I have a new article out in JMH. It's about wet-nursing, care work, and infant mortality in early modern Catholic Europe. It's also a reflection on how we ought to do feminist history post-Dobbs. I have a (separate) link for 50 free pdfs – dm me! www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

‘Pico della Mirandola’s speech was intended as high Renaissance performance art, but that’s not to say it was secular, humanist or modern – rather, it was profoundly weird.’ @erinmaglaque.bsky.social on the philosopher who wanted to be an angel: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Giovanni Pico​ wanted to love God, but he couldn’t stop asking questions. “688. How does God intelligise?” “720. When will the end of time come?” “732. Which natures are suited to be made happy?”’ @erinmaglaque.bsky.social on the Renaissance philosopher: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

enjoyed this long read about the renaissance + this weird "debate me" guy who thought debate could literally transform him into an angel (via @edwinet.bsky.social )

Pico! Tall, gorgeous, great hair, a genius, arrogant af. Had so much fun with this piece. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Issue 47.18 is now online, featuring: @erinmaglaque.bsky.social on Pico della Mirandola Conor Gearty on human rights and the law Thomas Laqueur on the cello Jessica Olin on Amanda Knox Colin Burrow on Muriel Spark and David Runciman on the road to Brexit. Read online at www.lrb.co.uk

‘Pico della Mirandola’s 𝘖𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 contravenes the very idea of human possibility that we think the Renaissance is about – yet we think of the Renaissance this way partly because of a centuries-long misreading of it.’ @erinmaglaque.bsky.social on the philosopher: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

If you want more on amphibians and reproduction (who does not?), read @erinmaglaque.bsky.social on the long history of frog-based pregnancy testing. ‘I had assumed that the relationship between pregnant women and frogs went out with the Enlightenment. I was wrong.’ www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

☠️☠️☠️

‘There is no single-point perspective, no study of human anatomy, little movement. Instead there is silk, gold and suspended emotion – an embrace of mystery that feels archaic and alien.’ @erinmaglaque.bsky.social on medieval Sienese painting, at the National Gallery: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

A palaeography challenge. This woman told the Geneva consistory court in 1568: 'Paris belongs to the king and my body belongs to me.' But what was her name? I have 'Jehanne du Nuyes' [?] but v v uncertain. Please help!! (And thank you!!)

I'm closing in on a final draft of my book manuscript, on the history of the female body. Here's a paragraph from the introduction – about women wanting.

‘Sienese painters adopted forms so distinct that their work was not always appreciated for its idiosyncratic qualities. There is no single-point perspective, no study of human anatomy, little movement.’ @erinmaglaque.bsky.social at the National Gallery: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

I reviewed the National Gallery's extraordinary exhibition of Sienese painting for the @lrb.co.uk www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

This is easily my favorite-ever letter from a reader 🐸

I'm teaching Saidiya Hartman's LOSE YOUR MOTHER tomorrow. I still think this passage is some of the best writing on what history can and should do. Why do we conjure the ghosts? Why do this at all? "This is the intimacy of our age with theirs – an unfinished struggle."

‘It is one of those unaccountable facts of modernity: Nasa launched a chimpanzee into space before women had access to reliable, frog-free home pregnancy testing.’ @erinmaglaque.bsky.social on the history of pregnancy and conception: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

giving out all the 🔥🔥🔥 tips on the pod

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...

‘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...

🐸

‘People in the past were more comfortable with doubt, and we should be too. But I wonder if we can really imagine ourselves back into that older way of being a body.’ @erinmaglaque.bsky.social on the history of pregnancy and conception: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘There aren’t any frogs involved in making a baby now. But there isn’t much mystery either, or much room to express doubt, and it’s not clear that this certainty has been an unequivocal gift.’ @erinmaglaque.bsky.social on the history of pregnancy and conception: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

I wrote about the history of conception for the @lrb.co.uk – about doubt and certainty, bubbles and frogs and fairytales, and why I'm so over plot: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Issue 47.07 is now online, featuring: @jamesmeek.bsky.social in Greenland @malcolmgaskill.bsky.social on the Peasants’ War
@erinmaglaque.bsky.social on pregnancy Miriam Dobson on Cold War pen-pals Patrick Cockburn on the Iranian embassy siege and a cover by Helen Napper. Read now at www.lrb.co.uk

Erin Maglaque on sex with Christians

An exquisite read to accompany lunch--theology, book history, social history, and critique in one tidy package www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

'It was mildly kinky, what went on in those caves—like edging, but for God.' www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

Some lovely paradoxes here by @erinmaglaque.bsky.social: 'For much of the past two thousand years, sexual images & fantasies came not from pornography but from scripture'. Very interesting re a student's question on Monday @standrewshist.bsky.social about how different sex was in Eden & Cockaigne.

Our 4/24 issue is now online, with @fotoole.bsky.social on Trump’s destructive European policy, Vivian Gornick on City College, @erinmaglaque.bsky.social on sex with Christians, Merve Emre on Tom Wolfe, Peter Singer on morality, Omer Bartov on Israel’s genocide, and much more.

I wrote about s-x and G-d in the gorgeous Spring Books Issue of @nybooks.com. In which i ask: it is possible to write a s-xy history of s-x?…and then have a go at writing one. It’s kinda f!lthy, hopefully very fun, enjoy: www.nybooks.com/articles/202...