I start with a confession. In 2018, I wrote a piece for Nursing Clio titled “It’s Not You, It’s Me: #MeToo in Academia,” detailing an abuse of power by a professor for whom I worked as a TA. I state this now only because there was a part of the story that I left out…. Read more →
Bridget Keown
Bridget Keown
Writer
Narrative Privilege and the Power of Pose
This post contains spoilers for the full series of Pose, including the series finale. Dorian Corey began her career as a dancer in the Pearl Box Revue sometime in the 1960s. By the late 1970s, she was the mother of the House of Corey, strutting the runway in underground drag balls and performing in shows… Read more →
“There’s Only One Way This War Ends”: New Ways of Telling a Familiar Story in Sam Mendes’s 1917
In the spring of 1917, the German Army was recouping from enormous losses suffered at the Somme, Verdun, and in the Brusilov Offensive on the Eastern Front. Hoping to consolidate and reinforce their manpower, their army on the Western Front retreated to a series of well-planned, highly fortified trenches known as the Hindenburg Line. In… Read more →
“Stories in Plain View”: Cat Sebastian’s Revolutionary Queer Historical Romances
It’s no secret that I love romance novels. At its best, the genre challenges traditional narratives by offering emotional and sexual agency to characters who are so frequently denied both; not only women, but gay, lesbian, nonbinary, and queer characters. In a world that continues to wrestle with equity, bodily autonomy, and consent, romances are… Read more →
“Keepers of the Light”: A Musical History of the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus
Music forms a critical part of every documented human culture, providing a functional and emotional form of communication. Studies show that individuals who make or listen to music experience heightened levels of oxytocin and endorphins, resulting in decreased pain perception and relief from symptoms of depression. Within groups, creating music can sync heartbeats, leading to… Read more →
Complicating the Canon of the First World War: A Review of Ellen La Motte’s Backwash of War, edited by Cynthia Wachtell
Think back on any syllabi of the First World War and the literature represented in it. For me, those titles included Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, and Frederick Manning’s The Middle Parts of Fortune, or poets like Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, and Laurence Binyon. Indeed,… Read more →
Colorizing and Fictionalizing the Past: A Review of Peter Jackson’s They Shall Not Grow Old
Five years ago, the Imperial War Museum in London contacted Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings fame) and tasked him with presenting some 100+ hours of archival footage from the First World War in a “fresh and original” way, without any new or modern footage. For over half a decade, Jackson and his team… Read more →
“Everything Seems Wrong:” The Postwar Struggles of One Female Veteran of the First World War
Around the world, ceremonies, public art installations, concerts, lectures, and educational events are commemorating the fallen of the First World War, to make beauty, peace, and sense out of a century of global grief. These ceremonies provide a critical sense of closure to a world still reeling from the political, economic, and personal ramifications of… Read more →
Bohemian Rhapsody
In July 1985, at 6:20pm local time, Queen (comprised of bassist John Deacon, guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor, and lead singer Freddie Mercury) took the stage at Wembley Stadium for their performance as part of Live Aid, a star-studded concert broadcast worldwide to raise money for famine victims in Ethiopia. Critics have consistently ranked… Read more →
“We’re Here As Women”: General Hospital, #MeToo, and the Power of Soap Operas
Split personalities and evil twins, secret babies and long-lost heirs. Soap operas provide us with stories of high drama and deep intrigue, contrasting scenes of familiar domestic life with a narrative tuned to the highest possible emotional frequency. Because they air every day, five days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, daytime soap operas are… Read more →