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JOANNA BOURKE
Blogs
Here are my latest blogs! Enjoy.
Jan 308 min read
The Möbius Strip & Negative Zoélogy: Celebrating Difference
A möbius strip: 'Which side of the strip are the ants walking on?'. (A 1963 poster of a woodcut by M. C. Escher) The concept ‘the human’...
10
Nov 4, 20242 min read
Queer Activism, Citizenship, and the Age of Consent
Why aren’t gay, lesbian, trans, and queer people full citizens in law? This question enraged gay activists in 1990s Britain. The HIV/AIDS...
320
Jun 15, 20243 min read
Sexual Violence Research Instigates Change
Caption: Reception for the Shameless! Festival of Activism Against Sexual Violence. Left to right: Professor Joanna Bourke, Julia...
210
Jun 15, 20241 min read
SHaME's End of Grant Report
I loved working with the SHaME (Sexual Harms and Medical Encounters) team over 5 and a half years. SHaME’s Public Engagement Lead, Dr...
70
Apr 24, 20241 min read
Shameless! (just a few of the 'star' speakers)
The SHaME project have talked to some incredible people who reflect on sexual violence and ways to create rape-free worlds. You can...
210
Apr 24, 20241 min read
Shameless! Festival of Activism Against Sexual Violence
The events I have enjoyed most in connection with the SHaME project were our two Shameless! Festivals of Activism Against Sexual...
70
Apr 24, 20241 min read
SHaME: Sexual Harms and Medical Encounters
For five and a half years, I have been privileged to work with the SHaME team at Birkbeck. It has been the most intellectually rewarding...
90
Mar 17, 20246 min read
Audre Lorde: Inspirations Series
Audre Lorde changed the way generations of feminists throughout the world think about intersectional identities, social justice, and the...
230
Mar 9, 20242 min read
Lighten up! Make Coral Lace Tuiles.
Are you like me? Working on 'difficult' subjects? So.... Take care of yourself and your friends. Here is something more relaxing…. Try...
180
Mar 7, 20245 min read
Clare Shaw's Incredible Poems in 'Towards A General Theory of Love'
Clare Shaw, Towards a General Theory of Love (Hexham: Bloodaxe Books, 2022) Clare Shaw’s new, prize-winning poetry collection is their...
1730
Feb 11, 202426 min read
‘It Makes My Head Jump’: Shell-Shock, Psychology, and War 1914-1945
On the 7 July 1916, Arthur Hubbard painfully set pen to paper in an attempt to explain to his mother why he was no longer in France. He...
190
Feb 11, 202419 min read
The Killing Frenzy: Wartime Narratives of Enemy Action
William Manchester was a scared young American, flung down on the island of Okinawa during the Second World War and expected to act with...
60
Feb 11, 20247 min read
The Strange Case of George Dedlow: Mutilation, Military Surgery, and Weir Mitchell
On the 29 June 1864, a military surgeon in the 21st Kentucky Infantry wrote to his wife. ‘It has been almost one continued stream of...
110
Feb 11, 20242 min read
Lighten up! Blue Cheese Biscuits
Are you like me? Working on 'difficult' subjects? So.... Take care of yourself and your friends. Here is something more relaxing…. Try my...
100
Feb 11, 202414 min read
History, Mental Health, and Psychiatry: 5 Shifts
Robairt Clough was a long-term patient at Holywell Psychiatric Hospital in Antrim (Northern Ireland). In the Christmas 1972 edition of...
760
Feb 10, 202418 min read
‘Rachel Comforted’: Spiritualism and the Reconstruction of the Body after Death
Tragedy struck Edith Cecil-Porch Maturin four times between 1900 and 1917. First, her twelve-year-old son died in 1900, followed five...
140
Feb 10, 20246 min read
Eric Hobsbawm (with a nod to poetic genius Adrienne Rich!)
What do we get when we lend our ears to Eric Hobsbawm? Passion. Energy. Exhilarating sweeps of time; giddy swoops into political darkness...
150
Feb 10, 20248 min read
Sleep: A History
Sleep is necessary to life. However, it remains shrouded in mystery, despite the fact that most people spend one third of their lives...
160
Feb 6, 202413 min read
The Humanities: La Fontaine's Cat, Kafka's Ape, and the Human
What does it mean to be human? We inhabit a world that is commonly, and lazily, dubbed ‘post-human’. Indeed, in recent decades, an...
120
Feb 6, 20244 min read
Rape (a very very short history)
We are never told her name. None of the soldiers encircling her would have been interested in such niceties. The only relevant...
270
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