By Jacqueline Antonovich
-Plague riddled pigeons.
-What did Gettysburg smell like?
-Airport food used to be a big deal.
-Remember the Sand Creek Massacre.
-Mass imprisonment and public health.
Worlds of Rape, Words of Rape
Stories of rape again fill the news. Rolling Stone featured an article by Sabrina Rubin Erdely about University of Virginia’s responses […]
Sunday Morning Medicine
By Jacqueline Antonovich
-Practicing narrative medicine.
-When Thanksgiving was weird.
-How do you memorialize a mob?
-Theories of the first topsy-turvy dolls.
-A November feast in medieval Europe.
-The ethics of healthcare worker strikes.
Motherhood, Expanded
By Rachel Epp Buller
I was a senior in high school when Vice President Dan Quayle delivered his soon-to-be-infamous diatribe against Murphy Brown while on the campaign trail. Quayle was supposed to be addressing the Los Angeles race riots, but along the way he ended up blaming single mothers for a decline in social values and blasting Candice Bergen’s fictional TV character for glorifying single motherhood as “just another lifestyle choice.”[1] Although the speech was viewed at the time as a political gaffe, Quayle and then-President Bush capitalized on the media frenzy to politicize the notion of “family values.” They sought to convey to voters that motherhood should be confined to the institution of heterosexual marriage; morally questionable single mothers endangered both the welfare of children and society as a whole. In the years since Quayle’s speech, journalists, sociologists, and historians have continued to write about the Murphy Brown incident.[2] Some argue that Quayle’s stance has proven prophetic and that single mothers do indeed wreak havoc on the social fabric.[3]
Tuning In for Public Health: The Promise of Televised Health Education in 1950s America
During a recent well-child check up, the nurse asked how much television my son watched. Although not common a generation […]
Sunday Morning Medicine
By Jacqueline Antonovich
-The strange dating games of 1914.
-The evolution of the doctor’s office.
-The men who built the Berlin Wall.
-Dress designs lost in the Holocaust.
-Are your medical records top secret?
-How Kodak set the skin-tone standard.
“This is our Freedom Summer”: My Reflections on #FergusonOctober
By Austin McCoy
My decision to participate in Ferguson October was spur of the moment. I did not plan to attend, but my partner and her roommate convinced me to go. My interconnected multiple selves — black man, job-seeking graduate student, and activist committed to social justice — waged a battle for my conscience and time. My multiple deadlines and obligations as a graduate student made such a trip inconvenient. Yet, I recalled my reaction to the George Zimmerman verdict. I remembered crying to express my helplessness and grief. I told myself that night, I would not be caught on the sidelines in the fight for racial justice again. I promised that I would do anything in my power to be present the next time, because, unfortunately, I knew there would be a next time.
I’m a Country Girl … Or Not
By Sarah Handley-Cousins
I have a confession: I love country music. I grew up in a small town that could have come straight out of a country song, with its one stoplight, large number of cows, and self-described “redneck” residents. Country music was, unsurprisingly, pretty popular. I stopped listening to country for quite awhile after I left home, until a friend took me to a Zac Brown Band concert — after that, I was hooked. My Pandora stations all had titles like “Today’s Country Radio” and “Country Love Songs Radio.” I even bought cowboy boots. One day while singing along to Florida Georgia Line’s incredibly popular “Cruise,” I found myself thinking, “Man, I want to be this girl.”
Sunday Morning Medicine
By Jacqueline Antonovich
-Historiography via Ebony.
-The rise and rise of sexology.
-A brief history of the tampon.
-Video chatting with Communists.
-A history of religion and cosmetics.
Not Done Yet: Midwifing a Return to Social Birth
As a doula, I have the privilege of attending other women’s labors and deliveries. Recently I attended a delivery assisted […]