Surekha Davies
Historian of Science, Speaker, Historical Monster Consultant
Surekha Davies is a British historian of science, a speaker, and a historical monster consultant. She is the author of the multi-award-winning Renaissance Ethnography and the Invention of the Human: New Worlds, Maps and Monsters (2016). Her latest book is Humans: A Monstrous History (2025). Her writing has also appeared in the LA Times, The Times Literary Supplement, Reactor, Science, and Nature. Sign up for her free newsletter, Notes from a Science Historian, for 2-3 issues a month on history, science, art, culture, and monsters, and for subscriber-only content including an excerpt from Humans: A Monstrous History: https://buttondown.com/surekhadavies?tag=aeon
Written by Surekha Davies
essayHistory of science
Monstrification
For centuries we’ve used the declaration of ‘monster’ to eject individuals and groups from being respected as fully human
Surekha Davies
essayAstronomy
Here be black holes
Like sea monsters on premodern maps, deep-space images are science’s fanciful means to chart the edges of the known world
Surekha Davies