Catherine Fletcher talks to Professor Stephen Greenblatt about the Adam and Eve story in the Christian tradition; to Islam Issa about Islam's version which tells a rather more gender-equality story of the original first couple. Jennifer Evans and Sara Read reveal how the story impacted on mothers and would-be mothers over centuries through their reading of 16th and 17th century medical textbooks. Garlic was one interesting diagnostic of pregnancy while menstrual periods played their part in murder trials.
Professor Stephen Greenblatt is the author of The Rise and Fall of Adam & Eve
Islam Issa is a New Generation Thinker and author of Milton in the Arab-Muslim World.
Jennifer Evans is a director of the Perceptions of Pregnancy research network, author of Aphrodisiacs, Fertility and Medicine in early modern England and editor of Perceptions of Pregnancy from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century .
Sara Read is author of Maids, Wives, Widows: Exploring Early Modern Women’s Lives, 1540-1740 ; Maladies and Medicine: Exploring Health and Healing, 1540-1740 co-authored with Jennifer Evans. (2017)