For those of us who teach pre-modern English history and literature, there’s a conversation that happens nearly every semester. When […]
The Intimate History of Confinement
From the first page, it’s clear that Dr. Jessica Cox’s Confinement: The Hidden History of Maternal Bodies in Nineteenth-Century Britain […]
Remembering the Forgotten “Black Angels”
Many historians, including myself, have told the story of New York City’s Sea View Hospital, a tuberculosis sanatorium that operated […]
Eugenics Was Wrong Even When It Got It Right
Ann Leary’s 2022 novel The Foundling follows a young white woman, Mary Engle, who in the 1930s lands a job […]
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 […]
Menstrual Advocacy Is Flowing and Flowering
When I was researching my first book, The Modern Period: Menstruation in Twentieth-Century America (2009), one of the most frequent […]
Family Connections: Melissa Fu’s Peach Blossom Spring
“To know a story is to carry it always, etched in his bones, even if dormant for decades.” (Melissa Fu, […]
Reckoning with the History of Racial Marketing of Menthol Cigarettes
In Pushing Cool, Dr. Keith Wailoo presents a sixty-year history of menthol cigarettes becoming a racialized product. Wailoo has written […]
The Family Roe and the Messy Reality of the Abortion “Jane Roe” Didn’t Get
I almost didn’t read The Family Roe: An American Story by Joshua Prager. When I saw the premise – a […]
Healthy by Design? Reflections on The Topography of Wellness by Sara Jensen Carr
If the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated a unique ability to muddle our perceptions of time, it has also made us […]