(Mis)Conceptions: A Cultural History of Pregnancy Indeterminacy

（Mis）概念是在怀孕结果已知之前的不确定性的文化历史。生殖不确定性通常是生殖历史研究中的一个初步或次要话题，在这里是中心定义。诊断模糊影响怀孕;失败的怀孕，假的，否认或隐藏怀孕;或类似怀孕的条件。在胎儿成像和现代诊断技术出现之前，不确定状态可能会延长、复发或慢性化。这个项目表明，怀孕的不确定性是广泛生活，提供了广泛的空间，并明确讨论的历史写作。与此同时，（Mis）概念提高了人们对这一事实的认识，即尽管现在遇到的情况不同，但怀孕的不确定性不仅仅是过去的事情。历史的洞察力能让这种经历在文化上更明显或更好地理解吗？（Mis）概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有的问题，在历史档案和身体之间进行了富有成效的类比。对诊断和病史书写的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。（Mis）概念特别涉及怀孕的负面历史。没有怀孕的证据更难找到。这个项目探讨了在缺乏知识的情况下出现的神话和其他虚构形式。通过玛丽都铎（1516-58）的文化超定的情况下，谁遭受了两次非生殖怀孕事件，我将专注于神话和虚构产生的历史和医学写作的交叉点。历史学家和医学作家是如何在不同的历史关头，合谋产生哥特式的双胞胎怪物：玛丽和模棱两可的非生殖经验？（Mis）概念需要一个文化历史，女权主义的方法，不仅询问如何生殖不确定性和非生殖的理解，在中世纪的世界中，玛丽是社会化的，但也如何玛丽的情况下塑造了后来的医学或虚构的想法生殖不确定性，反过来，反馈到她的统治和殖民地和宗派政治的帐户。这些研究考虑了不同的历史时刻如何聚集，合成和解释先前的文本和想法，以创造身体和过去的新图片。怀孕歧义如何告诉我们关于历史制造的文化，以及历史实践的研究如何改变我们对怀孕歧义的理解？一个富有想象力的公共参与领导议程将从这个单一的例子丰富的腹地整理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-为当代生育健康的辩论做出贡献。一个跨学科的参与团队-包括一个视觉艺术家-将与两个焦点小组（1。生育咨询员和咨询学生; 2.具有尝试怀孕经验的人）开发公共资源，利用历史观念和美学研究当今的妊娠不确定性心理。人们如何协商、改善和容忍过去的生育未知，历史和艺术能否帮助理解现代生育经验？这种参与议程利用历史和艺术创造一个“空间分离”，超越自我，建立一个替代的Vantage点的经验，生殖的不确定性。该团队将把公众参与学习带回到学术对话中，讨论如何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。

(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.