If you’ve been following Nursing Clio this past week you know by now that we’re celebrating our one-year anniversary. As […]
One Year of Making the Personal Historical
By Carrie Adkins
In 2009, the historian Jill Lepore told an interviewer that “as an obsessive reader of newspapers and watcher of news,” she was struck by “how impoverished our historical perspective is on most contemporary problems.” She was absolutely right. In 2012, as we, the co-founders of Nursing Clio, began to conceptualize our project, the news was making me want to lose my mind. Every day, I watched as Republicans proposed – and sometimes passed – new bills that limited access to safe and affordable abortion. And, to my horror, they didn’t stop there but instead started attacking contraception as well. Lawmakers worked to eliminate insurance coverage for birth control; Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a “slut” because she opposed those measures; and the presidential candidate Rick Santorum went so far as to state that contraception itself was “not okay.” Watching these developments, I went from bemused to angry to downright scared. We were supposed to be living in the twenty-first century! What on earth was happening here?
A Kind of Reflection, a Kind of Declaration
By Austin McCoy
I am not accustomed to writing autobiographically, but Jacqueline asked us to reflect on our experiences blogging for Nursing Clio. First, I want to express how much I have enjoyed contributing my voice to the outstanding chorus that Jacqueline and the rest of Nursing Clio’s editors orchestrate on a daily basis. I am grateful that Jacqueline asked me to write for the blog because I appreciate the value of producing what we in The Ohio State University’s African American and African Studies Department called “relevant scholarship”—intellectual content aiding people of color and progressives in their political struggles. I thought I would write of my writing experiences generally so I can illustrate how writing for Nursing Clio fulfills a responsibility to act as an activist-minded public scholar.
“You’re Not Snappy Enough!”: Learning How to Write Through Nursing Clio
By Sean Cosgrove
If you’ve ever thought of yourself as a passive consumer of Nursing Clio I’m here to tell you (in the nicest possible way) that you’re wrong. You’re as much an active producer of material as we are. Sure, I do a little more writing for the site than the average reader, but by and large, you drive the content, engage in the discussion, and compel me to improve myself as a scholar. Without your input not only would Nursing Clio be in some strife, but the very reasons why I’ve joined, and why I persist in inflicting my opinions upon you, begin to disappear.
Join me in as I say thanks to readers, on behalf of myself and Nursing Clio more generally, for getting us to our first birthday!
Happy 1st Birthday Nursing Clio!
By Jacqueline Antonovich
I can’t believe that one year ago this week, our little collaborative blog project went live. Has it really been that long? It seems like just yesterday Cheryl, Ashley, Carrie, Meggan, Adam, Carolyn and I were debating what to call this blog- Mons Pubis? Pubis Medicus? Nurse Clio? Thank God cooler heads prevailed and we went with Meggan’s suggestion of Nursing Clio (For an explanation of the name see here). As the creator, co-founder, and executive editor of this whole endeavor, I have to tell you, this has been an intensely fantastic, insane, scary, and rewarding first year. I have met some wonderful scholars, engaged in some lively debates, and formed what I hope will be life-long friendships. In every way, the blog has exceeded my expectations and I hope we continue to bring you important, relevant, and fun conversations throughout this next year.
Sunday Morning Medicine
By Jacqueline Antonovich
-A history of “Women aren’t funny.”
-Vintage Spring Break snapshots.
-Photographing a mother’s descent into mental illness.
-Did Jamestown settlers eat people?
-Found: WWI prisoner of war postcard.
-A 1936 anti-poverty film.
Mommy, Daddy, Can I Have a Gun?
By Cheryl Lemus
My son is a bit obsessed with the game of Skylanders at the present moment. My husband and I were very late on the bandwagon of purchasing a Wii and even when we decided to; our son had to trade in his Nintendo DS and its games to purchase the game console and the starter package (we made up the difference). Since then, it has been a tug of war to maintain the number of hours he (and his sister) can play the Wii, while at the same time monitor what he is playing. When he first told me about Skylanders, one of the first things he said to me was, “Don’t worry Mommy, there are no guns and no blood,” and he was right, although I still think the game introduces him to mild violence. But then I remembered how many Saturday mornings I spent glued to the T.V. watching Bugs Bunny, while I ate a bowl of cereal. So I relaxed a bit. Yet, I was surprised that just as he mentioned Skylanders to me, he instantly reassured me that the violence included no guns and blood. At this point, you can guess that my husband and I are not gun enthusiasts by any stretch of the imagination and although my son has asked several times for a Nerf gun or something like that, we as good, but evil liberals, of course replied, “Hell no! Nerf guns will just lead you to the dark side of NRA worship,” or something like that. So by now, he knows that the question, “Mommy, Daddy, can I have a gun?” should never cross his lips. But I know very well that in many households that question would be met with a resounding, “Thank God our Johnny (or Jill) has seen the light!”
Adventures in the Archives: These Losses Which Are Not My Own
By Carolyn Herbst Lewis
Lately I find that my mind is muddled. I have accepted a position at a new institution, so both professionally and personally there are big changes ahead. In the meantime, I am caught in that strange space in-between. I am finishing up projects and responsibilities here, even as I am already making plans and thinking about my courses there. I look around my home and my campus office and all I see are things that need to be put into boxes. It is a strange time in which beginnings and endings are all tangled into one busy mess. No wonder it’s hard to get anything “done”.
Sunday Morning Medicine
By Jacqueline Antonovich
-Robots can fix your lady parts.
-Would you like to buy Hemingway’s racist telegrams?
-Was Jane Austin the first game theorist?
-Newly revealed letters give insight into a young J.D. Salinger.
-How coffee changed the course of history.
-Judging Hollywood’s best figure circa 1931.
Marketing Domesticity
By Rachel Epp Buller
One of the recurring themes in my “Women and Gender in Art History” class this semester has been the historical association of women with the domestic sphere. In the nineteenth century, we looked at examples of European art that addressed this clear cultural separation of spheres, where public = masculine and private = feminine. Of course, this cultural association of women with domesticity persisted throughout much of the twentieth century (think June Cleaver) and was cleverly marketed to women through seemingly endless inventions of domestic appliances and ever-better cleaning products.
By the 1970s, American feminist artists and writers began taking on the gendering of domesticity. Building on Betty Friedan’s arguments in The Feminine Mystique (1963), writers like Pat Mainardi critiqued the cultural assumptions that made cleaning a gendered imperative. In “The Politics of Housework” (1970), Mainardi examined the excuses used by her husband to avoid sharing the burden of household chores:
