(Mis)Conceptions: A Cultural History of Pregnancy Indeterminacy

（错误）观念：妊娠不确定性的文化史

• 批准号: AH/X006530/1
• 负责人: Isabel Davis
• 金额: $ 25.03万
• 依托单位: Natural History Museum
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FX006530%2F1
• 关键词: Mis; Conceptions; Cultural; History; Pregnancy

(Mis)Conceptions is a cultural history of the uncertainty before pregnancy outcomes are known. Reproductive uncertainty, often a preliminary or side-topic in reproductive historical research, is here centrally defining. Diagnostic ambiguity affects pregnancy; failed pregnancy, faked, denied or hidden pregnancy; or conditions that resemble pregnancy. Uncertain states could be extended, recurrent, or chronic before foetal imaging and modern diagnostic technologies. This project shows that pregnancy indeterminacy was widely lived, afforded extensive space and explicitly discussed in historical writing. At the same time, (Mis)Conceptions raises awareness of the fact that, although it is now encountered differently, pregnancy uncertainty isn't only a thing of the past. Can historical insight make that experience more culturally visible or better understood?(Mis)Conceptions resists a teleological approach to reproduction by de-emphasizing outcomes. Instead, the project foregrounds ontology and epistemology as problems shared by medical and historical writers, drawing a productive analogy between the historical archive and the body. Thinking about diagnosis and history writing together brings new perspectives on the subjective search for proof: the nature of evidence, classifications of signs/symptoms, experimental practice, experience and authority. (Mis)Conceptions particularly addresses pregnancy's negative history. The proofs of not conceiving are harder to find. This project explores the myths and other fictional forms which emerge in the absence of knowledge.Through the culturally overdetermined case of Mary Tudor (1516-58), who suffered two non-reproductive pregnancy events, I will focus on myths and fictions generated at the intersection of historiographical and medical writing. How have historians and medical writers, at different historical junctures, conspired to engender twin gothic monsters: Mary and ambiguous non-reproductive experiences? (Mis)Conceptions takes a cultural historical, feminist approach, asking not only about how reproductive indeterminacy and non-reproduction were understood in the medieval world in which Mary was socialised, but also how Mary's case shaped later medical or fictional ideas about reproductive indeterminacy which have, in turn, fed back into accounts of her reign and its colonial and sectarian politics. These investigations consider how different historical moments gathered in, synthesized, and interpreted prior texts and ideas to create new pictures of both the body and the past. How does pregnancy ambiguity inform us about cultures of history making, and how does a study of historical practice alter our understandings of pregnancy ambiguity?An imaginative leadership agenda in public engagement will marshal conceptual pre-modern materials from the rich hinterland of this single example - e.g. future forecasting, theories of mind and body, diagnostic tools and techniques, and experimental practice - to contribute to debates about contemporary fertility health. An interdisciplinary engagement team - including a visual artist - will work with two focus groups (1. fertility counsellors and counselling students; 2. people with experience of trying to conceive) to develop public resources which use historical ideas and aesthetics to research the psychology of pregnancy indeterminacy today. How did people negotiate, ameliorate and tolerate the reproductive unknown in the past, and can history and art help understand modern fertility experience? This engagement agenda uses history and art to create a 'space apart', beyond the self, establishing an alternative vantage point on the experience of reproductive uncertainty. The team will carry public engagement learning back into academic conversations about using history to challenge unexamined assumptions and historical legacies that shape current experience, and to articulate the pleasure and value of investigating the past.

（错误）观念是一种在怀孕结果已知之前不确定的文化历史。生殖不确定性，通常是生殖历史研究的初步或次要主题，在这里是中心定义。诊断模糊影响妊娠；妊娠失败、假妊娠、否认妊娠、隐瞒妊娠；或者类似怀孕的情况。在胎儿成像和现代诊断技术之前，不确定状态可能会延长、复发或慢性。这个项目表明，怀孕不确定性是广泛存在的，提供了广泛的空间，并在历史写作中明确讨论。与此同时，《（错误）观念》让人们意识到，尽管现在遇到的情况有所不同，但怀孕的不确定性并不仅仅是过去的事情。历史的洞察力能使那段经历在文化上更加可见或更好地理解吗？（错误的）观念通过不强调结果来抵制目的论的生殖方法。相反，该项目将本体论和认识论作为医学和历史作家共同的问题，在历史档案和身体之间进行了富有成效的类比。将诊断和历史写作结合起来思考，为主观寻找证据带来了新的视角：证据的性质、体征/症状的分类、实验实践、经验和权威。《错误的观念》特别讲述了怀孕的负面历史。不怀孕的证据很难找到。这个项目探索了在缺乏知识的情况下出现的神话和其他虚构形式。玛丽都铎（Mary Tudor, 1516- 1558）经历了两次非生殖性怀孕事件，在文化上被过度决定了，通过这个案例，我将把重点放在历史编纂和医学写作交叉产生的神话和小说上。历史学家和医学作家是如何在不同的历史节点密谋创造出一对哥特式怪物：玛丽和暧昧的非生殖体验？《错误的观念》采用了一种文化历史和女权主义的方法，不仅询问了在玛丽被社交化的中世纪世界中，生殖不确定性和非生殖性是如何被理解的，而且还询问了玛丽的案例如何塑造了后来关于生殖不确定性的医学或虚构观念，这些观念反过来又反馈到了她的统治时期及其殖民和宗派政治的描述中。这些调查考虑了不同的历史时刻如何聚集、综合和解释先前的文本和思想，以创造身体和过去的新画面。怀孕的模糊性如何让我们了解历史创造的文化，对历史实践的研究如何改变我们对怀孕模糊性的理解？一个富有想象力的公众参与领导议程将从这一单一例子的丰富内陆汇集概念性的前现代材料，例如未来预测、身心理论、诊断工具和技术以及实验实践，以促进关于当代生育健康的辩论。一个跨学科的参与团队——包括一名视觉艺术家——将与两个焦点小组(1)合作。生育咨询师和咨询学生；2. 有尝试怀孕经验的人)开发公共资源，利用历史观念和美学来研究今天怀孕不确定性的心理。在过去，人们是如何协商、改善和容忍生殖未知的，历史和艺术是否有助于理解现代的生育经验？这个参与议程利用历史和艺术创造了一个“空间”，超越了自我，在生殖不确定性的体验上建立了另一个有利位置。该团队将把公众参与学习带回学术对话中，利用历史来挑战塑造当前经验的未经检验的假设和历史遗产，并阐明调查过去的乐趣和价值。