The Abortion Decision: Personal and Economic Outcomes
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 conferring the constitutional right to abortion. The overturn of Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022 has resulted in bans on abortion in many U.S. states. Dr. Genna Miller, Duke Lecturing Fellow of Economics and Laura Micham, director of the Sallie Bingham Center, curated an exhibit in Perkins Library (September 5- October 31) to contextualize this devastating change to abortion access. Along with visualizations for recent economic data and the landmark Abortionomics Report, the items in this exhibit linked past and present experiences of abortion, from using plants like pennyroyal to control conception and real-life abortion stories in Voices from the Waiting Room, to activist pins from abortion-access organizations.
Image: Chichester's English Red Cross Diamond Brand New Style Pennyroyal Pills. Madison Square, Philadelphia: [between 1888 and 1906].
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Jennifer Doyle on Working with the Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Papers
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Photo of a postcard José Esteban Muñoz sent Eve from Florida the summer of 1991. Image by Jennifer Doyle.
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Dr. Jennifer Doyle is one of two inaugural recipients of the Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Travel Grant which supports the development of new work engaging with the Sedgwick Papers. Doyle, professor of English at the University of California, Riverside, is writing a book on the impact of harassment, paranoia, and grief on writing and pedagogy. She spent time with the Sedgwick papers this summer, and wrote about the experience in a blog post for the Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Foundation which funds the travel grant. Annie Sansonetti, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Performance Studies at New York University, is the other recipient of the grant this year, and will be using the Sedgwick Papers in support of her dissertaion research, “Reapproaching Feminine Boys and Transgender Girls in Queer and Trans Theory and Art.”
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Portrait of Josephine Napoleon Leary, from the digitized collection.
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Josephine Napoleon Leary's Story, from Twitter to Archives to Novel
A new novel by Kianna Alexander, Carolina Built, shares a fictionalized narrative about the incredible life of Josephine Leary (1856-1923), a Black businesswoman who lived in Edenton, NC. Alexander was inspired by a tweet from a literary agent who was visiting Edenton and saw an exhibit featuring Leary. This connection lead Alexander to the digitized collection of Leary's papers and a visit to the Rubenstein Library to conduct further research. Selections from the Leary Papers will be featured in an exhibit case in Perkins Library in January 2023.
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An Altar of Words: Wisdom To Comfort and Inspire African-American Women by Byllye Avery
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| Advice Literature by and for Black Women
- An Altar of Words: Wisdom To Comfort and Inspire African-American Women by Byllye Avery (Broadway, 1998)
- Can I Get a Witness? For Sisters When the Blues is More Than a Song by Julia A. Boyd (New York: Dutton, 1998)
- Embracing the Fire: Sisters Talk About Sex and Relationships by Julia A. Boyd (New York: Dutton, 1997)
- Girlfriend to Girlfriend; Everyday Wisdom and Affirmations From the Sister Circle by Julia A. Boyd (New York: Dutton, 1995)
- No One is Coming to the Rescue: Lessons Learned on Self-Esteem & Growth for Women of All Ages by Ameerah Alisande (Freedom Publications, 2009)
- You Can Get There from Here: Life Lessons on Growth and Self-Discovery for the Black Woman by D. Anne Browne (Bryant & Dillon Publishers, 1995)
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Professors and students have been eager to return to the archives this fall, with a number of classes visiting the library:
- Writing 101: Dolly Parton for President? This course taught by Leslie Maxwell helps first-year students build critical writing and research skills while exploring the many facets of icon Dolly Parton. One of the major writing assignments takes the form of a zine, so students spent time reading and discussing a wide variety of zines by women from the 1990s to the 2010s. Librarian Kelly Wooten was assisted in working with three sections of this class by Bingham Center graduate intern Shiloh Jines, and our new colleague Ani Karagianis from University Archives.
- Fabricating Race: Art, Clothing, Resistance- Kimberly Lamm brought her Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist (GSF) Studies course to engage with books, photographs, and periodicals that portray self-representation of Black Americans from the 19th century through the Harlem Renaissace, Black power movements, and beyond. Librarian Kelly Wooten collaborated with Franklin Center director John Gartrell to lead this session.
- Race, Gender, and Sexuality- Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies professor Anna Storti returned with her seminar students to engage with a range of materials from artists' books to Duke student publications and activist organizational records to consider the relationship of gender to race and sexuality through a variety of issues such as health, intimacy, family, and social movement. Director Laura Micham lead this session.
- PASH (Peer Advocacy For Sexual Health) House course- Laura Micham and Ani Karagianis continued the tradition of working with peer educators in training in a session lead by Gabrielle Fry. Students explored the history of sexual health education within and beyond Duke through collections documenting college student life, artistic expression, activism, prescriptive literature, and the history of medicine.
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The Bingham Center brought our traveling library of zines to the Durham Zine Machine Printed Matter Festival on October 16.
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