Strange and Wondrous: Notes from a Science Historian

Welcome to my newsletter! I’m Dr Surekha Davies, historian of science and author of Humans: A Monstrous History (University of California Press, 2025) and the multi-award-winning Renaissance Ethnography and the Invention of the Human: New Worlds, Maps and Monsters (Cambridge University Press, 2016). I’ve also published essays in Smithsonian Magazine, LA Times, the Times Literary Supplement, Science, Nature, Reactor Magazine, and elsewhere. This newsletter is about strange stories in history, culture, science, often about monsters or monster-making. It appears 2-3 times a month and includes updates about my new writing, podcast interviews, and speaking events. Sign up now for free! You’ll automatically receive a subscriber-only essay, “Behind the Smithsonian Magazine essay”, about a piece I wrote for the magazine on a Renaissance painting of hell, and an excerpt from Humans: A Monstrous History. To learn more about me and to read some of my newspaper and magazine essays, please visit my website, www.surekhadavies.org.