Past events

Public lectures

Professor Sarah Franklin (Department of Sociology) gave her inaugural lecture, 'After IVF: the Reproductive Turn in Social Thought', on 30 October 2013.

Born to Rule: Royal Births in Tudor and Stuart England was a pair of lectures given in June 2013 in which leading historians explored how Tudor and Stuart monarchs begat children. Peter Jones gave the first lecture, 'Henry VIII: The Quest for an Heir'. Mary Fissell gave the second lecture, 'Mary of Modena: A Royal Scandal'.

Exhibition

Books and Babies: Communicating Reproduction, an exhibition supported by our Wellcome Trust strategic award, was on display at the University Library from July to December 2011.

Reproduction on Film

• Sex, Secrets and Lies
  Fifth 'Reproduction on Film' series, February to March 2016
• Outlaws
  Fourth 'Reproduction on Film' series, February to March 2015
• Making Babies
  Third 'Reproduction on Film' series, February to March 2013
• Monstrosity
  Second 'Reproduction on Film' series, February to March 2012
• Reproductive Dystopias
  First 'Reproduction on Film' series, March 2011

Festival of Ideas

• Should We Be Having Babies at 20?
  21 October 2015
• Is Menstruation Healthy?
  22 October 2014
• Can Europe Reproduce Itself? Debating Europe's Fertility
  28 October 2013
• Forging Frontiers in Classical Medicine: Exploring the Body
  Lecture by Rebecca Flemming, 26 October 2013
• Debating Reproduction: Hospital Birth
  1 November 2012
• Debating Reproduction: IVF
  20 October 2011

Workshops and conferences

• The Contested History of Hormone Pregnancy Tests
  27 January 2017
• Reproductive Politics in France and Britain
  5–7 September 2016
• Sex, Disease and Fertility in History
  28–30 September 2015
• Reproduction on Film
  23–25 September 2015
• Con/Tested: Sperm Science, Sterility and Masculinity
  11–12 September 2014
• Cities and Towns as Epidemiological Drivers: Emerging Issues in Urban Historical Demography
  17–18 March 2014
• Interdisciplinary Workshop on Reproduction 9
  15 November 2013
• Making Love, Making Gender, Making Babies in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s
  6–7 September 2013
• In/Fertility and Sacred Space: From Antiquity to the Early Modern
  15–16 July 2013
• Generation and Reproduction in Medieval Europe
  8 December 2012, preceded by a lecture by Marianne Elsakkers (Utrecht) on 7 December
• Interdisciplinary Workshop on Reproduction 8
  23 November 2012
• Reproducing China: Childbirth, One Child, and Beyond
  13–14 July 2012
• Making Human Heredity: Populations and Public Health in the Postwar Era
  28–30 June 2012
• Transforming Pregnancy Since 1900
  29–30 March 2012
• Communicating Reproduction
  5–6 December 2011
• Interdisciplinary Workshop on Reproduction 7
  18 November 2011
• Reproduction and the Sciences in Cambridge
  8 April 2011
• Interdisciplinary Workshop on Reproduction 6
  12 November 2010
• Interdisciplinary Workshop on Reproduction 5
  30 October 2009
• Seriality and Scientific Objects in the Age of Capital and Empire, 1848–1919
  22–23 April 2009
• Ancient Greek and Roman Scientific, Medical and Technical Writing
  21 March 2009
• Interdisciplinary Workshop on Reproduction 4
  14 November 2008
• Seriality and Scientific Objects in an Age of Revolution, 1780–1848
  16–17 June 2008
• Ancient Greek and Roman Medical and Scientific Writing
  15 March 2008
• The 'Missing Link': Medicine in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
  8 March 2008
• Secrets and Knowledge: Medicine, Science and Commerce, 1500–1800
  15–16 February 2008
• Interdisciplinary Workshop on Reproduction 3
  16 November 2007
• Cases in Science, Medicine and the Law
  20–21 April 2007
• PhD Workshop on Medieval and Early Modern Science and Medicine
  23 March 2007
• Interdisciplinary Workshops on Reproduction 1 & 2
  17 November 2006 and 2 March 2007
• Temporalizing the Great Chain of Being: A Reappraisal After 70 Years
  16 January 2007
• Astrology and the Body, 1100–1800
  8–9 September 2006
• Science and Medicine in the Multinational Empires of Central and Eastern Europe
  23 June 2006
• Free School Lane Workshop on Reproduction
  17 October 2005
• Between the Farm and the Clinic: Agriculture and Reproductive Technology in the Twentieth Century
  29 April 2005

Wellcome Lectures

• Fifteenth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine
  Sarah Richardson (Harvard University), 13 February 2020
• Fourteenth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine
  Marta Hanson (Johns Hopkins University), 17 January 2019
• Thirteenth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine
  Alisha Rankin (Tufts University), 1 March 2018
• Twelfth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine
  Alexandra Minna Stern (University of Michigan), 24 November 2016
• Eleventh Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine
  Michael Stolberg (University of Würzburg), 14 January 2016
• Tenth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine
  Rebecca Flemming (Classics, Cambridge), 15 January 2015
• Ninth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine
  Malcolm Nicolson (University of Glasgow), 16 January 2014
• Eighth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine
  Maaike van der Lugt (Université Paris Diderot – Paris 7 / Institut Universitaire de France), 17 January 2013
• Seventh Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine
  Staffan Müller-Wille (University of Exeter), 19 January 2012
• Sixth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine
  Mary Fissell (Johns Hopkins University), 20 January 2011
• Fifth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine
  Angus McLaren (University of Victoria), 3 December 2009
• Fourth Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine
  Rayna Rapp (New York University), 4 December 2008
• Third Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine
  Simon Szreter (St John's College, Cambridge), 29 November 2007
• Second Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine
  Hilary Marland (University of Warwick), 23 November 2006
• First Cambridge Wellcome Lecture in the History of Medicine
  Helen King (Reading University), 1 December 2005