Ann Leary’s 2022 novel The Foundling follows a young white woman, Mary Engle, who in the 1930s lands a job as secretary to Dr. Agnes Vogel. The fictional Dr. Vogel is the founder and director of the Nettleton State Village for Feebleminded Women of Childbearing Age, an institution based on many real-life institutions, including one… Read more →
I am a survivor: Childhood Sexual Abuses Collections & the Archives
“I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse,” are words that lend themselves to whispers in the night, a disclosure between friends over a glass of wine. But these are not words that are meant to be spoken by a professional woman working in academia, for they break a social contract – the life of… Read more →
Disability (and) Politics: The Fetterman Fiasco of Fall 2022
In Fall 2022, conservative pundits condemned Senator-elect John Fetterman (D-PA), who had survived a stroke the previous spring, using discriminatory rhetoric. They claimed that because he was communicating using closed-caption technology, he was unfit for office. In addition, they suggested that his disability would render him unfit to perform the duties of his office. Evidently,… Read more →
Dental Work and Colonoscopies, for Someone Who Used to Always Say OK
Content warning: This piece discusses parent-child sexual abuse, coercion, and addiction. Nobody likes getting a colonoscopy. It’s not just the procedure, but the “prep” of taking a laxative and knowing your bathroom needs to be within easy reach for the next thirty-six hours or so. But what I call “Dad’s Playbook” — his instructions for… Read more →
History, Ghosts & Jokes: A Review of Ghost Church
I first went to a medium for the same reason probably everyone does: I hoped to speak to the dead. My brother had recently and unexpectedly died, and our family was in crushing grief. Perhaps a medium, we hoped, could give us some reassurance that he was safe on the “other side.” That’s what first… Read more →
Nursing Clio Presents its Eighth Annual Best of List!
Favorite book: Eileen: By far, it was Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic. Spooky, weird, and gorgeously written. I’m counting down the days until winter break so I can spend an afternoon re-reading it. Vicki: My reading habit has not been particularly good this year. One book I’m still thinking about, however, is Wayétu Moore’s She Would… Read more →
Relationships Matter: Roth on H. Yumi Kim, Madness in the Family: Women, Care, and Illness in Japan
Before professional medical care became widely available, mental illness was often viewed as a personal malady with social impacts. Mental illness did not spread to others like contagious diseases could, yet it still affected those around the mentally ill individual. Families were often the first to experience how mental illness shaped someone’s behavior and interactions… Read more →
Incarcerated and Infected: The Fragility of Our State Prison System During the COVID-19 Pandemic
In the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic crisis, policymakers were forced to answer hard-hitting ethical questions: how would resources including ventilation and vaccination doses be fairly allocated among citizens? Who would they prioritize, and how would they decide? Detailed as they were, allocation guidelines neglected to address and prioritize the needs of thousands who… Read more →
Abortion in the American Imagination: Before Life and Choice, 1880-1940 by Karen Weingarten
Abortion in the American Imagination takes us back to the early twentieth century, when American writers first dared to broach the controversial subject of abortion. Putting authors like Wharton and Faulkner into conversation with the era’s films and non-fiction, Karen Weingarten uncovers a vigorous public debate decades before Roe v. Wade. Along the way, she… Read more →
Abortion Care As Moral Work: Ethical Considerations of Maternal and Fetal Bodies, An Interview with Johanna Schoen
The timely anthology from Rutgers University Press, Abortion Care As Moral Work: Ethical Considerations of Maternal and Fetal Bodies, edited by Johanna Schoen, brings together the voices of abortion providers, counselors, clinic owners, neonatologists, bioethicists, and historians. The authors describe their motivations for offering or studying abortion care; discuss how anti-abortion regulations have made it… Read more →