Margaret Carlyle

Assistant Professor

History, Power, Conflict and Ideas

Office: ART 247
Email: margaret.carlyle@ubc.ca

Research Summary

History of medicine, science, & technology; history of reproduction and the life sciences; gender and women's studies; history of the body; material culture & medical technologies; medical science and race in the French Atlantic world.

Courses & Teaching

HIST 118: History of Science, Medicine, and Technology From Antiquity, HIST 218: Science and Empire, HIST 308: The Scientific Revolution, HIST 310A: Reproduction & Motherhood (1700–present), HIST 373: History of Race, Gender, & Science in the Atlantic World, HIST 374: History of Science and the Enlightenment, HIST 375: History of Pandemics, HIST 460A: History of Reproductive Technologies, HIST 475A: History of the Body (1500–1900), HIST 495A: History of the Body—Medicine, Religion, Law (1500–1900), HIST 492/IGS 592: History, Theory, & Method. Undergraduate Honours, Graduate Student Supervision: I supervise undergraduate/graduate/postdoctoral research.

Biography

Before joining the University of British Columbia Okanagan, I was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Chicago, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Cambridge (and Fellow at Christ’s College), and a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota.

Websites

I am currently a member of UBCO’s Science and Technology Studies (STS) Collective: https://hs.ok.ubc.ca/research/science-and-technology-studies-collective/

You can listen to the Reproductive Technologies podcast that I produced with the support of a SSHRC grant here: https://blogs.ubc.ca/reproductivetechnologiespodcast/

https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/reproductive-technologies%20

You can access the virtual gallery of The Fetus in Utero: From Mystery to Social Media, an exhibition that I co-curated with Dr. Brian Callender at the University of Chicago, here: https://the-fetus-in-utero.rcc.uchicago.edu/

You can find my publications and course outlines here: https://www.academia.edu/

Degrees

PhD, McGill University
MA, McGill University
BA, University of Winnipeg

Research Interests & Projects

I am an historian of science, medicine, and technology with specialization in early modern France in national, European, and transatlantic contexts. My research focuses on women’s role in the formation of scientific knowledge—as experimentalists, artisans, and translators, both in and beyond traditional institutions of science. I engage with such topics as scientific imaging and medical technologies using a variety of archival and museum sources (texts, images, and objects). In keeping with my multifaceted approach, I publish in a variety of journals, including those dedicated to knowledge formation; history of medicine, science, and technology; women’s history; and French history. My first book manuscript, Women and Anatomy in Enlightenment France, is currently under review at McGill-Queen’s University Press. I am embarking on my second book project with the help of a SSHRC Insight Development Grant on Reproductive Technologies in the French Atlantic World (1650–1800) and am part of a UBC research team (led by Dr. Fuchsia Howard and Dr. Natasha Orr) devoted to the development of educational tools for medical students and practitioners on chronic gynecological pelvic pain.

Selected Publications & Presentations

Co-Edited Volumes

Forthcoming 2025: Co-edited with Scottie Buehler, “Reproductive Objects,” Journal Special Issue, Bulletin of the History of Medicine

Co-edited with Katherine M. Reinhart, Anatomical Things, Journal Special Issue, KNOW: A Journal on the Formation of Knowledge 6:1 (June 2022): 223 pages

Articles & Book Chapters

Forthcoming 2025: Co-authored with Scottie Buehler, “Introduction” to “Reproductive Objects,” Journal Special Issue, Bulletin of the History of Medicine

Forthcoming 2025: “Women and Anatomy Education in Enlightenment France: A Double-Edged Scalpel,” French Historical Studies

“Entretien avec une astronome du XVIIe siècle,” Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF) Gallica: Trésors de Richelieu, 18 October 2023

Co-authored with Katherine M. Reinhart, “Introduction,” in “Anatomical Things,” Journal Special Issue, KNOW: A Journal on the Formation of Knowledge 6:1 (June 2022): 1–5

“Mistress Mummy: Dissecting the Flesh-and-Blood Venus,” in “Anatomical Things,” Journal Special Issue, KNOW: A Journal on the Formation of Knowledge 6:1 (June 2022): 139–176

Co-authored (with Victor D. Boantza), “Something is in the air: Experimental spaces, analogical reasoning, & the problem of putrefaction in Enlightenment Europe,” Larry Stewart & Gordon McOuat, eds., Spaces of Enlightenment Science, (Leiden: Brill, 20 January 2022), 44–73

Co-authored (with Brian Callender & Julie Chor), “Images of the Fetus in Utero: From Mystery to Social Media,” The Lancet (2021): 1208–9

Co-authored (with Brian Callender), “The Fetus in Utero: From Mystery to Social Media,” KNOW: A Journal on the Formation of Knowledge 3:1 (Spring 2019): 15–67

“Marie-Geneviève-Charlotte Thiroux D’Arconville (née Darlus), Traité d’Ostéologie (Paris, 1759),” Many Women, Many Voices: Stories from the McGill Collections, Rare & Special Collections, Osler, Art, & Archives (ROARR) (Montréal: McGill, 2018), 39–40

“Phantoms in the Classroom: Midwifery Training in Enlightenment Europe,” KNOW: A Journal on the Formation of Knowledge 2:1 (Spring 2018): 111–36

“Artisans, Patrons, & Enlightenment: The Circulation of Anatomical Knowledge from Paris to St. Petersburg,” R. de Bont, K. Wils, & S. Au, eds. Bodies Beyond Borders: Moving Anatomies 1750-1950 (Leuven University Press, 2017), 23–49

“Breastpump technology & ‘natural’ motherly milk in Enlightenment France,” K. Qureshi & E. Rahman, eds. Women’s Studies International Forum, Special issue on Infant feeding: medicine, the state & body techniques 60 (2017): 89–96

“Collecting the world in her boudoir: women & scientific amateurism in eighteenth-century Paris,” M. Lindemann et al, eds. Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Forum on women in science, 11:1 (Fall 2016): 149–61

“Entre le Traité d’ostéologie et les Leçons de chymie : Mme d’Arconville, traductrice des Lumières [Between the Traité d’ostéologie & the Leçons de chymie: Mme d’Arconville, translator of Enlightenment],” M.-L. Girou Swiderski & M.A. Bernier, eds., Madame d’Arconville, moraliste et chimiste au siècle des Lumières (Oxford: Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment. 2015), 183–210

“From Practice to Print: Women Crafting Authority at the Margins of Orthodox Medicine,” Studies in Book Culture/Mémoires du livre 6:1 (Spring 2014): 28pp

“Entre manuscrits et maquettes: L’Entretien sur l’opinion de Copernic de Jeanne Dumée [Between manuscripts & models: Jeanne Dumée’s L’Entretien sur l’opinion de Copernic],” A. Gargam & B. Lançon, eds., Les femmes de sciences: Réalités et représentations, de l’Antiquité au XIXe siècle (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2014), 115–34

Co-authored (with James Wallace), “Making Mechanics Modern: Mary Somerville’s Translation of Franco-Newtonian Science,” K. Barclay & D. Simonton, eds., Women in Eighteenth-century Scotland: Intimate, Intellectual & Public Lives (Burlington: Ashgate, 2013), 133–52

“Femme de sciences, femme d’esprit: ‘le Traducteur des Leçons de Chymie’ [Woman of science, woman of letters : ‘the translator of Leçons de Chymie],” P. Bret & B. van Tiggelen, eds., Madame d’Arconville (1720–1805): Une femme de lettres et de sciences au siècle des Lumières (Paris: Éditions Hermann, 2011), 71–92

“Invisible Assistants & Translated Texts: d’Arconville & Practical Chemistry in Enlightenment France,” D. Andréolle & V. Molinari, eds., Women & Science, 17th Century to Present: Pioneers, Activists & Protagonists (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011), 19–34

Special Exhibition Virtual Gallery

Co-curated (with Brian Callender), “The Fetus in Utero: From Mystery to Social Media,” Special Collections Exhibition, University of Chicago Regenstein Library, Winter 2019 (Live virtual gallery with audio tour).

Selected Grants & Awards

Individual Research & Teaching Grants: SSHRC Explore & Exchange Grant, “Making Anatomy Public: A Revolutionary Reordering of Knowledge,” $2,915, 2024; UBCO Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences International Conference Travel Award, $2,500, 2024; UBCO Curricular and Teaching Innovation Grant (CTIG), “Podcasting the Present, Reproducing the Future: Designing a Seminar in the History of Technology,” $11,080, 2023; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant (IDG), “Reproductive Technologies in the French Atlantic World (1650–1800),” $57,000, 2021–2023; UBCO Public Humanities Hub Research Engagement Grant (with co-PI Heather Latimer), “Childbirth Technologies,” $5,790, 2021–2023; UBCO Hampton Fund Research Grant, “Reproductive Technologies in the French Atlantic World (1650–1800),” $10,000, 2021–2023; UBCO Aspire Fund, “Reproductive Technologies in the French Atlantic World (1650–1800),” $25,000, 2020–2023

Team Research Grants (UBC, PI: Dr. Fuchsia Howard): Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Project Grant, “Online Participatory Digital Storytelling for People with Endometriosis,” $595,000, 2023–2027; CIHR Catalyst Grant, “Development of an educational video series on chronic pelvic pain in gynecology for Canadian health care providers-in-training,” $25,000, 2023–2024; Health Innovation Funding Investment (HIFI), “Development of a serious game educational resource on chronic pelvic pain in gynecology for Canadian health care providers-in-training,” $25,000, 2022–23; Convening and Collaborating Michael Smith Health Research BC (MSHRBC), “Serious Game Resource on Chronic Pelvic Pain,” $15,000, 2022–23.

Previous research awards include: Mary Louise Nickerson Travel Grant (2019) and Dr. Edward H. Bensley (2018), Osler Library of the History of Medicine; Molina Fellow in History of Medicine & Allied Sciences, Huntington Library (2014).

Media

Interviews, Press, & Invited Posts

“The Unsung Heroines of History: A Glimpse into the Reproductive Technologies Podcast,” The Phoenix News, University of British Columbia Okanagan, October 30 2023

“Helping Hands: Uncovering and Eighteenth-century Midwifery Manual,” Library Matters, McGill University, May 2020

“In Search of Plagues Past,” Formations: The SIFK Blog, Univeristy of Chicago, April 2020

“How did the Fetal Ultrasound Become Such an Iconic Image?,” Formations: The SIFK Blog, University of Chicago, March 2019

“Mysteries of the Womb,” The Chicago Tribune, February 12 2019

“Embryonic Enigmas & Fetal Fantasies at Special Collections,” The Maroon, U Chicago, January 25 2019

“Anatomizing Thomas Rowlandson’s Representation of William Hunter’s Dissecting Room,” Library Matters, McGill University, September 2018

“Unwrapping a new medical receipt book,” Wangensteen Historical Library, U Minnesota, July 2017

Interview Richard Edwards, “History of Medicine,” Secrets of the Human Body special issue, Science Uncovered, May 2014

“Technological Objection of the Month: Midwifery Manikin,” U Cambridge, Literary Technology Media, February 2014

“Skeletons in the cupboard of medical science,” U Cambridge feature interview, 13 February 2014