As the U.S. descends into unprecedented political territory with investigations into the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia, pundits are scrambling to understand just what Trump is thinking. But history suggests that to understand Trump, we need to look beyond the usual cast of characters and consider some unlikely members of his inner circle. Chief among… Read more →
Category: News
What Lies Beneath: The Handmaid’s Tale in Trump’s America
I first came across Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale in my junior year of college, when it was assigned for my feminist theory class. I didn’t know much about the novel, but I remember that the professor emphasized how relevant the book’s message was in 1985, when it was first published; in 1990, when… Read more →
Sunday Morning Medicine
A weekly check-up of gender, medicine, and history in the news The WWII love letters between two men. Mending the broken faces of the Civil War. Meet Florence Nightingale, queer statistician. What was life like for women in the Viking Age? The tragic lessons of cinema’s first gay love story. Fascinating vintage photographs of grocery… Read more →
Sunday Morning Medicine
A weekly check-up of gender, medicine, and history in the news Punk rock and public history. Phrenology and the Civil War. Cough killer’s secret ingredient. Child stealing in Victorian Scotland. Trump, Charlemagne, and nostalgia. What doctors can learn from looking at art. The casualties of women’s war on body hair. The legacy of Invasion of the… Read more →
Sunday Morning Medicine
A weekly check-up of gender, medicine, and history in the news Cats in space. A history of gaslighting. Nipples without gender. How to train an obstetrician. How Mr. Coffee made coffee manly. Divine fat: butter in spiritual mythology. Irish women go on strike over abortion ban. There really was a Bowling Green Massacre. Were colonial… Read more →
Tales of Transnational White Privilege: Gender, Race, and Nationality on the Streets of Rio de Janeiro
It’s old news by now that on August 14, 2016, American swimmers Ryan Lochte, James Feigen, Gunar Bentz, and Jack Conger claimed that they were robbed at gunpoint by police officers at a gas station in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In an interview with NBC, Lochte said that the four swimmers had been pulled over… Read more →
Sunday Morning Protest
Instead of our weekly check-up of news, we’re dedicating this space to organizations you can donate your time and money: American Civil Liberties Union Southern Poverty Law Center Showing up for Racial Justice. Planned Parenthood NARAL Equal Justice Initiative Facing History Teaching Tolerance Physicians for Human Rights Zinn Education Project Students4Justice The Center for Media Justice… Read more →
Diagnosing Donald Trump
In his analysis of Donald Trump’s fitness for office, Brookings Institution fellow Robert Kagan recently wrote that “we can leave it to the professionals” to label with precision the relationship between Donald Trump’s behavior and what may be a clinically defined mental illness or personality disorder. Other commentators are less reluctant to diagnosis Mr. Trump…. Read more →
How Anti-Vaccine Ideology Crosses the Political Spectrum
Vaccinations have not been a major issue in the 2016 presidential campaign so far, but perhaps they should be. Republican candidate Donald Trump has repeatedly made statements promoting the disproven idea that vaccines cause autism. Third-party candidates have also joined the anti-vaccine chorus. Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson opposes mandatory childhood vaccinations, while Green Party candidate… Read more →
Sunday Morning Medicine
A weekly check-up of gender, medicine, and history in the news A brief history of chairs. Insomnia and birth control. Bad girls before the 1960s. The Gawker of Early America. Dog cakes and drug doctoring. What if women never won the vote? A farewell to abstinence and fidelity? The slave trade roots of private prisons…. Read more →