Lisa Cody, Ph.D.FRHistS, FRSA
Department
Areas of Expertise
Biography
Lisa Forman Cody is a cultural historian of Britain and Northern Europe. She works on the history of the family, gender, and the reproductive body across the Atlantic and Northern European worlds. Her work explores 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 project is Sex and Sensibility: A Theory of Marital Sentiments and Making Modern Households in England, 1660-1837. Her most recent refereed essay appears in the October 2022 Journal of British Studies on the history of marital rape, which is the recipient of two prizes for the best article of the year.
Professor Cody is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She currently serves as vice president (and president elect) of the Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies. She has held other elected posts with the American Historical Association, the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, and the Pacific-AHA and has 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
James Clifford Article Prize, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2024, for the best article of the year, for "'Marriage is no protection for crime': Coverture, Sex, and Marital Rape in Eighteenth-Century England," Journal of British Studies, October 2022.
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
"'Marriage is No Protection for Crime': Coverture, Sex, and Marital Rape in Eighteenth-Century England," Journal of British Studies 61.4 (October 2022): pp. 809-34.
Birthing the Nation: Sex, Science, and the Conception of Eighteenth-Century Britons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
Editor, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, Johns Hopkins University Press, vol. 41 (2012) and vol. 42 (2013).
"Living and Dying in Georgian London's Lying-in Hospitals," Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 78.2 (Summer 2004): 309-348.
“‘Every Lane Teems with Instruction, Every Alley is Big with Erudition’: Graffiti in Eighteenth-Century London,” in The Streets of London, 1660-1870, ed. Tim Hitchcock and Heather Shore (London: Rivers Oram Press, 2003), pp. 92-111.
“Sex, Civility, and the Self: Eighteenth-Century Conceptions of Gendered, National, and Psychological Identity,” in a Forum on Nina Gelbart's The King's Midwife and Gary Kates's Monsieur d'Eon is a Woman, French Historical Studies, 24:3 (Summer 2001): 379-409.
“The Politics of Illegitimacy in an Age of Reform: Gender, Reproduction and Political Economy in England's New Poor Law of 1834,” Journal of Women's History 11.4 (Winter 2000), pp. 131-156. Winner of the Judith Lee Ridge Article Prize, Western Association of Women Historians, 2000.
“The Politics of Reproduction: From Midwives' Alternative Public Sphere to the Public Spectacle of Man-Midwifery,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 32.4 (Summer 1999), pp. 477-495.
“’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.