Dr. Mary Fissell

Biography

Mary E. Fissell is the Inaugural J. Mario Molina Professor of History Medicine in the Department of the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. She holds appointments in the Departments of History and History of Science and Technology. Currently, she serves as president of the American Association for the History of Medicine and has edited the Bulletin of the History of Medicine for 15 years. Fissell is a recipient of fellowships from the National Library of Medicine, Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Davis Center at Princeton University. Her scholarly work focuses on the patient’s perspective in the history of medicine, as well as gender, sexuality, and the history of the body, and popular culture in early modern England and the Atlantic world. Her book, 'Vernacular Bodies' (Oxford, 2004), analyzes everyday ideas about making babies mediated by large-scale social, political, and religious change. She has a new book on the long history of abortion, published by Seal/Basic Books in the USA and Hurst in the UK. Fissell is currently developing a manuscript on 'Aristotle’s Masterpiece', a best-selling early modern book on sex and reproduction initially published in 1684 and sold in sleazy London sex shops until the 1920s, seeking to explore new ways of thinking about what is termed 'popular' knowledge in the past.

Research Interests