Helen King

What makes a woman? How far do bodies set our gender? Immaculate Forms focuses on the history of the breasts, clitoris, hymen and womb. I've worked on the history of medicine and the body for many years, following a PhD thesis on ancient Greek concepts of menstruation. Since then, I've published on the reception of ancient medical ideas about the female body, menstruation and birth up to the nineteenth century. It still amazes me that ancient ideas about women survived for so long, despite changes elsewhere in how the body was understood. I've held research fellowships in Cambridge and Newcastle, worked for 8 years in Liverpool, and then for 14 years at the University of Reading. In 2011 I became Professor of Classical Studies at the Open University and I am now Professor Emerita there. I've been a visiting lecturer at Mount Allison University, University of Victoria BC, and University of Texas, as well as a Fellow at the Netherland Institute for Advanced Studies, and a Visiting Professor at the Peninsula Medical School, where I taught the history of dissection to medical students.