Posts filed under ‘Gender Studies’
Generation Roe: A Perspective On The Current Pro-Choice Landscape And What The Future Holds
By Sarah Erdreich, author of Generation Roe (Seven Stories Press, March 2013). 
In the spring of 2008, I was living in Washington, D.C. and working as a freelance editor. I enjoyed the work, but missed having someone besides my dog to talk with during the day. So when I came across a job posting for part-time work on the National Abortion Federation’s hotline, I jumped at the opportunity.
I had never worked in the reproductive rights field, but I had always believed that women should have the right to choose: I grew up in a politically liberal town (Ann Arbor) in a politically liberal family, where I took lots of rights for granted.
And I thought that I knew plenty about abortion before I began working on the NAF hotline: the legendary court cases, the anti-choice violence, the reasons that a woman would make this choice. But working on the hotline was a real eye-opener. Every day, I heard from women of all racial, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds that were unable to access a legal medical service because of their income, their lack of reliable transportation, or the restrictions their state placed on abortion care. (more…)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: The Top Common Reading Book of 2011 and 2012
Winner of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine’s Communication Award for Best Book
Winner of the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Nonfiction
Winner of the Wellcome Trust Book Prize
Named by more than 60 critics as one of the best books of 2010, including: Best Book of the Year at: O, The Oprah Magazine, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Bookmarks Magazine, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, Entertainment Weekly, East Bay Express, and Kansas City Star, A Discover Magazine 2010 Must Read, National Public Radio, Best of the Bestsellers
In 1951, an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks, stricken with cervical cancer, became an involuntary donor of cells from her cancerous tumor, which were propagated by scientist George Otto Gey to create an immortal cell line for medical research. These cells are now known worldwide as HeLa. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, award-winning science writer Rebecca Skloot brilliantly weaves together the Lacks’s story–past and present–with the story of the birth of bioethics, the story of HeLa cells, and the dark history of experimentation on African Americans. Important, powerful, and compassionate, this is a remarkable work of science and social journalism. (more…)
University of California, Santa Barbara Picks the Acclaimed Book Apollo’s Angels
Finalist, 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction
(winner to be announced March 10th, 2011)
Named one of “The 10 Best Books of 2010” by the editors of the New York Times Book Review
“It has never been done before, what Jennifer Homans has done in Apollo’s Angels. She has written the only truly definitive history of the most impossibly fantastic art form, ballet…Homans accomplishment is akin to setting the most delicate and beautiful of all the imperial Faberge eggs into a fissure high on Mount Rushmore and tracking its unlikely survival…Inspired…The story of Balanchine has been told before, and at greater lengths, but never better…An eloquent and lasting elegy to an unlasting art.”—Cover Review, The New York Times Book Review
University of California, Santa Barbara selects Apollo’s Angels for its History of Modern Dance course this winter. (more…)
Author Rebecca Skloot Shares Inspiration Behind The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
The phenomenal story behind a woman named Henrietta Lacks, or better known as HeLa by scientists worldwide, is grabbing the attention of teachers and students alike.
Henrietta was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years.
In the following video clip, author Rebecca Skloot shares her inspiration for writing the book and how one woman’s life changed the world and came to be The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
Author website: www.rebeccaskloot.com
To read an excerpt, click here
To order an examination copy, click here (more…)
Zami A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography Now on the Syllabus at the University of California Santa Barbara
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name is a 1982 autobiography by African American poet Audre Lorde. It started a new genre that the author calls biomythography.
“Zami is a fast-moving chronicle. From the author’s vivid childhood memories in Harlem to her coming of age in the late 1950s, the nature of Audre Lorde’s work is cyclical. It especially relates the linkage of women who have shaped her . . . Lorde brings into play her craft of lush description and characterization. It keeps unfolding page after page.”—Off Our Backs (more…)
Three Modern Library Books Get Taught at The College of Saint Rose
Three books from Random House’s Modern Library acclaimed collection has been selected for English courses at The College of Saint Rose–The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: or, Gustavus Vassa, the African (Olaudah Equiano), The Algerine Captive: or, The Life and Adventures of Doctor Updike Underhill (Royall Tyler), and Charlotte Temple (Susanna Rowson).
For Modern Library’s Website, click here.
Order an examination copy here.
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