Lisa Cody, Ph.D. FRHistS, FRSA

Associate Professor of History

Department

History

Areas of Expertise

Abortion
European History
Gender and Sexuality
Great Britain
History of Science
Legal History
Visual Culture
Women’s History

Biography

Professor Lisa Cody is a cultural historian of Britain and Northern Europe. She works on the history of the human body, including abortion, reproduction, sexuality, gender, and violence across the Atlantic and Northern European worlds. Her work explores the history of the family, the law, medicine, literary and visual representations, and social conflict. She is the recipient of numerous prizes for her academic articles and first monograph, Birthing the Nation: Sex, Science, and the Conception of Eighteenth-Century Britons. Her current book projects are Between the Sheets: Sex, Intimacy, and Conflict in Eighteenth-Century Marriage and How Abortion Became an American Obsession. Her most recent refereed article appears in the October 2022 Journal of British Studies on the history of marital rape.

Professor Cody is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She currently serves as an elected board member of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies and is treasurer of the Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies. She has held other elected posts with the American Historical Association and the Pacific-AHA and served on scholarly prize and fellowship committees and editorial boards. She also was appointed by the Governor of California to serve on the California State Bar's Judicial Nominees Evaluation Commission (2018-2021) and continues to serve as a commissioner pro tem for JNE.

 

Education

A.B. magna cum laude, Harvard University; M.A., Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley

Awards and Affiliations

Article Prize, Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies, 2023, for the best article of 2022 in any field of British studies, for "'Marriage is no protection for crime': Coverture, Sex, and Marital Rape in Eighteenth-Century England," Journal of British Studies, October 2022.

Berkshire Conference of Women Historians Best Book Prize, 2006, for the best first historical work published by a woman in any historical field in 2005, for for Birthing the Nation: Sex, Science, and the Conception of Eighteenth-Century Britons (Oxford University Press, 2005).

Birthing the Nation, shortlisted for the Whitfield Prize, the Royal Historical Society, 2006, for the best first book in British History published in 2005

The Sierra Prize for the best book in any field of history by a member of the society in 2005, Western Association of Women Historians, 2006, for Birthing the Nation: Sex, Science, and the Conception of Eighteenth-Century Britons (Oxford University Press, 2005).

Prize for the Best First Book in any Historical Field, Phi Alpha Theta, the History Honor Society, 2005, for Birthing the Nation: Sex, Science, and the Conception of Eighteenth-Century Britons (Oxford University Press, 2005).

Walter D. Love Article Prize for the best article in any field of British History, North American Conference on British Studies, 2005, for "Living and Dying in Georgian London's Lying in Hospitals," Bulletin of the History of Medicine (Summer 2004).

Judith Lee Ridge Article Prize, Western Association of Women Historians, 2005, for the best article of the year by a member of the society in any historical field, for "Living and Dying in Georgian London's Lying-in Hospitals," Bulletin of the History of Medicine (Summer 2004).

Judith Lee Ridge Article Prize, Western Association of Women Historians, 2002, for the best article of the year by a member of the society in any historical field, for "The Politics of Illegitimacy in an Age of Reform," The Journal of Women's History, 2000.

Research and Publications

“’No Cure, No Money,’ or the Invisible Hand of Quackery: The Language of Commerce, Credit, and Cash in Eighteenth-Century British Medical Advertisements,” Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 28 (1999): pp. 103-130

“The Doctor's in Labour; or a New Whim-Wham from Guildford,” Gender and History 4.2 (Summer 1992): pp. 175-96

Contact
by arrangement: lisa.cody@cmc.edu
Spring Semester Tuesdays, 3-5pm via Zoom
Social