A long read that is well worth it, delving into the fascinating history of abortion. Erin Maglaque: "The abortion debate – the language of life, choice and rights – severs women, and their pain, from history. I don’t want to forget my abortion and I don’t want to forget theirs."

‘It is comforting to be haunted’: how attitudes to abortion have changed through the ages

The long read: The abortion debate – the language of life, choice and rights – severs women, and their pain, from history. I don’t want to forget my abortion and I don’t want to forget theirs

theguardian.com

Abortion, past and present, as an embodied experience - @erinmaglaque.bsky.social's draws on her new book, Presence: A Hidden History of the Family Body, to reflect on the long history and contemporary experience of abortion . A terrific, teachable intro. www.theguardian.com/news/2026/ju...

‘It is comforting to be haunted’: how attitudes to abortion have changed through the ages

The long read: The abortion debate – the language of life, choice and rights – severs women, and their pain, from history. I don’t want to forget my abortion and I don’t want to forget theirs

theguardian.com

This is really good from @erinmaglaque.bsky.social on attitudes to abortion over time & the bodyness of it all. We can fit ourselves into a long history of people finding and creating the spaces to be able to help each other - 'shared work', 'ordinary', quiet & domestic.

‘It is comforting to be haunted’: how attitudes to abortion have changed through the ages

The long read: The abortion debate – the language of life, choice and rights – severs women, and their pain, from history. I don’t want to forget my abortion and I don’t want to forget theirs

theguardian.com

The abortion debate – the language of life, choice and rights – severs women, and their pain, from history. I don’t want to forget my abortion and I don’t want to forget theirs @erinmaglaque.bsky.social @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/news/2026/ju...

‘It is comforting to be haunted’: how attitudes to abortion have changed through the ages

The long read: The abortion debate – the language of life, choice and rights – severs women, and their pain, from history. I don’t want to forget my abortion and I don’t want to forget theirs

theguardian.com

@erinmaglaque.bsky.social contextualizes her own experience of giving birth through the history of midwifery.

On Time, Pain and the Labor Process: Considering the History of Midwifery

Birth fractured my sense of time—of how time unfolded. I had previously taken for granted that time passed swiftly from one moment to the next. I organized my understanding of my own life according…

buff.ly

My weekly post on new nonfiction on @dailykos.com in part discusses the many books written and published now urging us to stay strong and involved in these troubled times. It's in the air, people! We're going to get through this and win! www.dailykos.com/stories/2026... Authors on Bluesky in comment

Nonfiction Views: This week’s notable new nonfiction, and the zeitgeist of hope

Good evening, everyone. As I was sifting through the hundreds of new release books to make my selections to feature on my Literate Lizard Online Bookstore or here on Nonfiction Views, I was struck by…

dailykos.com

“What apple? In 1588 Violante Scaglione testified: ‘Adam’s apple was Eve’s butt, not the pit of the fruit that got stuck in his throat when he was called by God.’” —@erinmaglaque.bsky.social on the real “forbidden fruit”

erin maglaque (@erinmaglaque.bsky.social)

historian at durham / writer and critic, mostly for the lrb and nyrb. i'm writing a history of the female body, out in june! https://linktr.ee/erinmaglaque https://erinmaglaque.com

erinmaglaque.bsky.social

Today, the #IMEMSSpotlight is on Dr Erin Maglaque! 📖 Find out more about 'Presence: A Hidden History of the Female Body' here: www.penguin.co.uk/books/465296...

“What apple? In 1588 Violante Scaglione testified: ‘Adam’s apple was Eve’s butt, not the pit of the fruit that got stuck in his throat when he was called by God.’” —@erinmaglaque.bsky.social on the real “forbidden fruit”

erin maglaque (@erinmaglaque.bsky.social)

historian at durham / writer and critic, mostly for the lrb and nyrb. i'm writing a history of the female body, out in june! https://linktr.ee/erinmaglaque https://erinmaglaque.com

erinmaglaque.bsky.social

Erin Maglaque (@erinmaglaque.bsky.social) on the sexual libertines of the Inquisition

erin maglaque (@erinmaglaque.bsky.social)

historian at durham / writer and critic, mostly for the lrb and nyrb. i'm writing a history of the female body, out in june! https://linktr.ee/erinmaglaque https://erinmaglaque.com

erinmaglaque.bsky.social

Come along on to the @ihr.bsky.social on Thursday to hear from @erinmaglaque.bsky.social, whose new book *Presence: A Hidden History of the Female Body* is coming out with Penguin next month!

IHR Society, Culture & Belief, 1500-1800@ihrscb.bsky.social · 3mo ago

A reminder that our next event is THIS THURSDAY (21 May) at 5.30 pm. Erin Maglaque @erinmaglaque.bsky.social will be speaking on '"A zeal without limits": the postmortem caesarian section in early modern Italy'! ✨ You can sign up here (in-person in room 243 & Zoom): www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Dieses hier ist ein so fantastischer Reviewessay zu Caravaggio, ein Vergnügen, auch wenn man sich nicht für Malerei interessiert: @erinmaglaque.bsky.social *erzählt* Caravaggio auf eine extrem frische, sich nie anbiedernde Art, bin hin und weg: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4... /1

Erin Maglaque · Never Known Heaven: Caravaggio’s Clothes

Clothing, for Caravaggio, worked in the same way as his chiaroscuro, dramatising disclosure and reticence, attraction...

lrb.co.uk

“Religion could be a source of catastrophic oppression for women as well as offering a way to imagine freedom.” —Erin Maglaque, interviewed by Chandler Fritz

Spirit in the Sky | Erin Maglaque, Chandler Fritz

What do Italian astronomers, cloistered nuns, levitating saints, and the “sexy dreams” of desert church fathers have in common? In the pages of the

nybooks.com

“Radical spiritual writing—prophecies, autobiographies, spiritual accounts—was a genre in which women [in the 17th-century] flourished: they wrote about childbirth, about raising and feeding children, about abusive marriages.” —@erinmaglaque.bsky.social

God’s Impertinent Prophets | Erin Maglaque

A new history brings to light the dissenting women who wrote, preached, and testified during England’s tumultuous seventeenth century, claiming the standing to speak as excluded outsiders who had un u...

nybooks.com

“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

God’s Impertinent Prophets | Erin Maglaque

A new history brings to light the dissenting women who wrote, preached, and testified during England’s tumultuous seventeenth century, claiming the standing to speak as excluded outsiders who had un u...

nybooks.com

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

God’s Impertinent Prophets | Erin Maglaque

A new history brings to light the dissenting women who wrote, preached, and testified during England’s tumultuous seventeenth century, claiming the standing to speak as excluded outsiders who had un u...

nybooks.com

‘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...

Erin Maglaque · Never Known Heaven: Caravaggio’s Clothes

Clothing, for Caravaggio, worked in the same way as his chiaroscuro, dramatising disclosure and reticence, attraction...

lrb.co.uk

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’s Bodies

Podcast Episode · The LRB Podcast · 4 March · 44m

podcasts.apple.com

‘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...

Erin Maglaque · Never Known Heaven: Caravaggio’s Clothes

Clothing, for Caravaggio, worked in the same way as his chiaroscuro, dramatising disclosure and reticence, attraction...

lrb.co.uk

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.

London Review of Books@lrb.co.uk · 5mo ago

‘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...

‘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...

Erin Maglaque · Never Known Heaven: Caravaggio’s Clothes

Clothing, for Caravaggio, worked in the same way as his chiaroscuro, dramatising disclosure and reticence, attraction...

lrb.co.uk

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...

New Email Shows Bard’s President Thanked Epstein for Caribbean Trip

nytimes.com

Quotes for PRESENCE ✨

This will be *fantastic*

erin maglaque@erinmaglaque.bsky.social · 6mo ago

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.

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.

Julie Hardwick@juliehardwick.bsky.social · 7mo ago

3/ Everybody read it! @chicagojournals.bsky.social @durhamhistory.bsky.social www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

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.