Cody, Lisa Forman 1964–

(Lisa Cody, Lisa Forman)

PERSONAL:

Born December 30, 1964; daughter of Bruce (a landscape painter) and Charlene Cody; married William Forman (an attorney); children: three sons. Education: Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges, A.B. (magna cum laude), 1987; University of California, Berkeley, M.A., 1990, Ph.D., 1993. Hobbies and other interests: Painting and drawing.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Pasadena, CA. Office—Dean of the Faculty Office, Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA 91711. Agent—Sydelle Kramer, Susan Rabiner Agency, 315 W. 39th, Ste. 1501, New York, NY 10018-3907. E-mail—lisa.cody@claremontmckenna.edu.

CAREER:

Worked as artist and graphic designer in 1980s; University of California, Berkeley, instructor in history, women's studies, and interdisciplinary studies, 1989-93; Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, visiting assistant professor in history, 1993-95; Denison University, Granville, OH, assistant professor of history, 1995-96; Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA, assistant professor, 1996-2003, associate professor of history, 2003—, department chair, 2004—, associate dean of faculty, 2008—.

MEMBER:

American Historical Association, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (member of James Clifford Article Prize committee, 1996; Catherine Macauley Gender Prize committee member, 1996, and chair, 1997), Western Association of Women Historians (member of Founder's Dissertation Prize committee, 2004-07).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Named one of the top one hundred college juniors, Time, 1986; Isobelle Briggs Alumna fellow, Radcliffe College, 1987-88; history department fellow, 1987-88, Beatrice M. Bain Prize for outstanding graduate essay in gender studies, 1989, George H. Guttridge Prize in British History, 1989-90, and named outstanding graduate student instructor, 1990, all University of California, Berkeley; Regents traveling fellow, 1990-91, humanities graduate research grants, 1989 and 1991, all University of California; Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral fellow in the humanities, 1993-95, Andrew W. Mellon research fellow, 1994; grants from Claremont McKenna College, 1997-2003, and American Historical Association, 1999-2000; Helen L. Bing fellow and Mayers fellow, Henry E. Huntington Library, 1999; Clark Library and Center for Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Studies fellow, 2000; Arnold L. and Lois S. Graves fellow, 2000; Benjamin Gould Humanities Center fellow, 2000, 2001, 2003; Judith Lee Ridge Prize, Western Association of Women Historians, 2002, for "The Politics of Illegitimacy in an Age of Reform: Women, Reproduction, and Political Economy in England's New Poor Law of 1834," and 2005, for "Living and Dying in Georgian London's Lying-in Hospitals"; Millicent C. McIntosh fellow, 2003-05; Walter D. Love Article Prize, North American Conference on British Studies, 2005, for "Living and Dying in Georgian London's Lying-in Hospitals"; Prize for Best First Book, Phi Alpha Theta, 2005, Best Book Prize, Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, 2006, Frances Richardson Keller-Sierra Prize, Western Association of Women Historians, 2006, and nomination for Whitfield Prize in British History, Royal Historical Society, 2006, all for Birthing the Nation: Sex, Science, and the Conception of Eighteenth-Century Britons; named a top young historian, History News Network, 2008.

WRITINGS:

(Editor and author of introduction) Writings on Medicine, 1660-1700, Ashgate Press (London, England), 2001.

Birthing the Nation: Sex, Science, and the Conception of Eighteenth-Century Britons, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2005.

Also author of articles "The Politics of Illegitimacy in an Age of Reform: Women, Reproduction, and Political Economy in England's New Poor Law of 1834," Journal of Women's History, 2000; and "Living and Dying in Georgian London's Lying-in Hospitals," Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2004.

Contributor to books, including The Streets of London, 1660-1870, edited by Tim Hitchcock and Heather Shore, Rivers Oram Press, 2003; History of Childhood, edited by Paula Fass, Macmillan, 2004; and The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, edited by Brian Harrison, Oxford University Press, 2004. Contributor to periodicals, including American Historical Review, Eighteenth-Century Studies, French Historical Studies, Gender and History, History Teacher, Isis, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Journal of Modern History, Journal of the History of Sexuality, Radcliffe Quarterly, Radical History Review, Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, and Victorian Studies. Associate editor of Journal of the History of Sexuality, 2001-04; Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, member of board of editors, 2005-08, associate editor, 2008-10, editor, 2010-12.

SIDELIGHTS:

Historian Lisa Forman Cody's first full-length study is the award-winning Birthing the Nation: Sex, Science, and the Conception of Eighteenth-Century Britons. She had already won bestarticle awards twice from the Western Association of Women Historians and once from the North American Conference on British Studies, and some of the research she had done for those articles, as well as for her doctorate, informed her 2005 book. Reviewing the study for the Historian, Richard C. Sha wrote, "At once history and compelling story, Lisa Forman Cody's book has much to tell us about politics, midwifery, gender, and the history of science."

Cody explores themes such as the rise and impact of male midwives, ideas about gender and identity, and political issues surrounding reproduction. She draws on a variety of sources, including hospital records, published articles, midwifery manuals, manuscripts, and even caricatures and satires. Deeming the book "well-researched medical history not political history," Anthony Fletcher in History Today found that it "is least convincing when it strays into political propaganda, most persuasive when it explores the world of obstetricians in depth." Sha expressed reservations about a few points, such as Cody's giving as much weight to satires and caricatures as to scientific writings, and he found some of her generalizations unsupportable, but he maintained that "despite these limitations, Lisa Cody's Birthing the Nation is a rich, signal, and absorbing study; one that all scholars of the eighteenth century overlook at their own peril." Several critics commented on the boldness of Cody's approach and were willing to overlook what weaknesses they perceived for its sake. Describing the book as "ambitious," Tim Reinke-Williams on H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online concluded that "even if Cody is sometimes controversial, or even wrong, it is precisely such bold theories and statements that make this a book that historians must and will engage with." Another H-Net contributor, Lesley A. Hall, characterized Birthing the Nation as "an ambitious and exciting work which brings together a plethora of fascinating material, weaves unexpected and provocative connections, and provides us with new insights into issues of gender, race, and nationality as they developed along new pathways during the course of the ‘long eighteenth century.’" The work received several awards, including the Phi Alpha Theta Prize for Best First Book and the Frances Richardson Keller-Sierra Prize from the Western Association of Women Historians.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice, February, 2006, S.L. Hoglund, review of Birthing the Nation: Sex, Science, and the Conception of Eighteenth-Century Britons, p. 1079.

Eighteenth-Century Studies, spring, 2008, Mary Lindemann, "(Re)Productive Thinking," pp. 423-426.

Historian, winter, 2006, Richard C. Sha, review of Birthing the Nation, p. 865.

History Today, November, 2005, Anthony Fletcher, review of Birthing the Nation, p. 64.

International Labor and Working-Class History, fall, 2006, Oz Frankel, review of Birthing the Nation, pp. 175-178.

Isis, September, 2006, Ludmilla Jordanova, review of Birthing the Nation, p. 555.

Journal of British Studies, July, 2006, Karen Harvey, review of Birthing the Nation, p. 659.

MetaScience, December, 2006, David E. Shuttleton, review of Birthing the Nation, pp. 511-514.

ONLINE

H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online,http://www.h-net.org/ (February, 2007), Tim Reinke-Williams, review of Birthing the Nation; (December, 2007), Lesley A. Hall, review of Birthing the Nation.

Institute of Historical Research,http://www.history.ac.uk/ (January, 2006), Alysa Levene, review of Birthing the Nation.

Claremont McKenna College Web site,http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/ (September 19, 2008), faculty profile.