Professor Durba Mitra‘s graduate class, Gender and History, had a discussion about gender and sexuality in the landscape of New York City next to the statue of J. Marion Sims, the so-called “Father of Gynecology” in Harlem. From 1845-1949, Sims carried out experimental surgeries on slave women to address the issue of persistent fistula after protracted labor in childbirth. He conducted these procedures on slave women without the use of anesthetics, believing that slave women did not need anesthesia for pain relief. While he is memorialized in a statue at 103rd Street and 5th Avenue for his innovative surgical techniques and his contribution to NYC medical institutions, his commitment to slavery and his use of slave women for experimentation is less well known. The memorial bears no marks of this history.
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Monthly Archives: October 2014
Critiquing a Memorial to a Medical Legacy, in Central Park
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Filed under Faculty News, New Course, Teaching
Tudor Historian Offers Perspective on Scottish Independence (Video Link)
When ABC News was looking for an expert to provide historial background to the momentous vote for Scottish Independence this past September, they turned to Fordham historian Chris Maginn. Chris gives us some background:
though I am a Tudor specialist by training, and am interested in the history of state formation, I try to keep abreast of contemporary politics in Britain in Ireland. While on leave in Ireland I was interviewed by America Magazine about the importance of the President of Ireland’s state visit to England: http://americamagazine.org/issue/higgins-visit-suggests-sea-change-anglo-irish-relations. So, the afternoon before the referendum I went up to ABC’s studio on 66th street and did a television interview; the following morning, in the wake of the election result, I was asked to do radio interviews on some of ABC’s national affiliates.
And here’s the video of the interview with Chris on ABC News (scroll to 7:40 to hear Chris Maginn’s comments)
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Filed under Faculty News
Chris Dietrich Presents Research on Oil and Decolonization (Video)
Fordham history professor Christopher Dietrich gave a talk at the Center for International and Comparative Law at Mississippi College in early October. He discussed his recent research on Middle Eastern oil elites and their place in the world in the aftermath of decolonization Luckily for us, his talk was recorded on video and is now available here:
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A Fordham Historian Helps Write the Future of Spaceflight
When we think about the future of spaceflight, the names that most often come to mind are those of the science fiction authors and film directors: Andrei Tarkowsky, Arthur C. Clarke, Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas, and most recently, Christopher Nolan. We certainly don’t think of historians. After all, historians are concerned with the past, not the future, right?Comments Off on A Fordham Historian Helps Write the Future of Spaceflight
Filed under Faculty News, Uncategorized