Athens: A Guide to the City
It is impossible not to be charmed by Athens. At night, bouzouki music wells up from dark basements; tables spill out of ouzeris, around...
top of page
JOANNA BOURKE
Blogs
Here are my latest blogs! Enjoy.
Feb 524 min read
Sex Work: A History
To whom does a woman’s body belong? In mid-nineteenth century Britain, this question provoked impassioned debates between moralists,...
40
Feb 520 min read
Abstinence: A History
Is sex a ‘good thing’? Is celibacy dangerous? How can we understand the explosive violence of Incels, those young men (primarily) whose...
10
Feb 518 min read
Monogamy: A History
Why is monogamy such a big deal? What can a history of fidelity and infidelity reveal about the changing rights, duties, and social...
00
Feb 520 min read
Pornography: A History
Pornography is divisive. It is guaranteed to incite heated debates between people inhabiting different subject positions based on...
60
Feb 520 min read
Sexual Perversion: A History
What do we mean when we talk about the ‘perversions’? Who gets to decide what is ‘normal’ or ‘abnormal’? The concept of ‘perversion’ is...
80
Feb 519 min read
Sexual Pleasure: A History
Throughout human history, sexual danger has regulated social lives and subjectivities. From the ‘yellow press’ of the late nineteenth...
80
Feb 54 min read
What is a University? Birkbeck College
Walking into the Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution (as it was then called) in the 1890s could be a dispiriting experience....
50
Feb 55 min read
Sexual Assault in the Military
Sexual violence and abuse are ingrained into military cultures. Armed conflict not only radically lowers the threshold at which...
70
Feb 54 min read
Self-Defence for Women: A History
In the 1870s, middle-class women carried ‘dagger-fans’ when alone in public places; in the early 1900s, they hosted ‘jujitsu parties’ for...
450
Feb 57 min read
Military '#MeToo'
In this blog, I reflect on the devastating conclusions of a report by the Defense Committee (25 July 2021) entitled ‘Protecting Those Who...
20
Jan 101 min read
bell hooks (on her death): Inspirations Series
bell hooks has been an enduring presence in my life. I first read her 1981 classic Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism as an...
30
Jan 76 min read
Breast Cancer: A History
Suddenly feeling a lump in one’s breast is terrifying, yet it is an experience suffered by one in every eight women in Britain and...
00
Jan 39 min read
Digital Ways of Dying
A fortnight ago, a friend sent me a light-hearted reminder that it was her birthday in a few days. She does this every year. The problem...
40
Jan 37 min read
Headache: A History
In 1964, author and critic Susan Sontag published a little-known short story entitled ‘Man with a Pain’. It is an eloquent reflection not...
20
Jan 35 min read
Sexual Assault: The Courtroom
Review of Heather R. Hlavka and Sameena Mulla’s Bodies in Evidence. Race, Gender, and Science in Sexual Assault Adjudication (New York:...
40
bottom of page