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Institute of Continuing Education (ICE)

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Biography
Louise Foxcroft read History at the University of Cambridge and published her PhD thesis as The Making of Addiction: The “use and abuse” of opium in nineteenth century Britain (Ashgate, 2007). Her other books are: Hot Flushes, Cold Science: A history of the modern menopause (Granta, 2009), which won the Longman/History Today Book of the Year, 2009, and was commended by the Medical Journalists’ Association, 2010; Calories and Corsets: A history of dieting over 2,000 years (Profile Books, 2012), shortlisted for a Food Writer’s Guild prize, 2013; Sexuality: All That Matters (Hodder & Stoughton, 2014); The Serpentine, Or, The Attractions of Water (Honeybee Books, 2015); and Gayer-Anderson: The Life and Afterlife of the Irish Pasha (American University in Cairo Press, 2016). She has written for The Times, Independent, Observer, Guardian, New Scientist, Literary Review, London Review of Books, New Humanist, etc., and has guested on TV, podcasts, and radio. Louise was the Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge, 2015-17. 
 
Qualifications: 
  • PhD, University of Cambridge
  • MPhil, University of Cambridge
  • BA Hons, University of Cambridge
  • Research

    My main research is in the history of medicine. Recent projects have attended to the relationships between medical understanding, attitudes and assumptions, and the personal, patient experience.

    Selected Publications

    BOOKS

    • The Serpentine, Or, The Attractions of Water , 2015
    • Sexuality: All That Matters (Hodder & Stoughton) , 2014
    • Calories and Corsets: A history of dieting over 2,000 years (Profile) , 2012
    • Hot Flushes, Cold Science: A history of the modern meno-pause (Granta) , 2009
    • The Making of Addiction: The “use and abuse” of opium in nineteenth-century Britain (Ashgate) , 2007
    • Gayer-Anderson: The Life and Afterlife of the Irish Pasha (American University in Cairo Press) , 2016

    Position

    Writer, Historian

    Links