Les réfugiés juifs et la profession infirmière britannique

Jewish refugees and the British nursing profession: A gendered opportunity

Jane Brooks

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Manchester University Press (June 4, 2024)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1526167422

This book follows the lives of female Jewish refugees who fled Nazi persecution and became nurses. Nursing was nominally a profession but with its poor pay and harsh discipline, it was unpopular with British women. In the years preceding the Second World War, hospitals in Britain suffered chronic nurse staffing crises. As the country faced inevitable war, the Government and the profession’s elite courted refugees as an antidote to the shortages, but many hospitals refused to employ Continental Jews.
The book explores the changes in the refugees’ status and lives from the war years to the foundation of the National Health Service and to the latter decades of the twentieth century. It places the refugees at the forefront of manoeuvres in nursing practice, education and research at a time of social upheaval and alterations in the position of women.

La reproduction dans la médecine anglaise du début du Moyen Âge

Conceiving bodies: Reproduction in early medieval English medicine

Dana Oswald

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Manchester University Press (June 4, 2024)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 232 pages
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1526176882

Despite reliance on ingredients like horse dung, Old English remedies for women’s medicine speak to contemporary reproductive concerns. Previous translators reduced the remedies to a general category of women’s medicine, but sustained examination of language reveals important distinctions: remedies for menstruation indicate social concerns about fertility, where remedies for ‘cleansing’ do not provide a clear path to conception, but rather foreclose it. Rarest of all are the remedies for childbirth, but their rarity is compounded by the practices of translators who conflate the language for women’s reproduction into an amorphous singularity. Through an original method of hysteric philology―the combining of traditional philology with contemporary feminist and medical epistemologies―this book situates itself in the historical treatment of reproductive people as both objects and subjects of medical practice, and gestures forward in time to the contemporary struggle for bodily autonomy.

La procréation et ses risques dans la Rome impériale

Birthing Romans: Childbearing and Its Risks in Imperial Rome  

Anna Bonnell Freidin

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Princeton University Press (May 21, 2024)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0691226279


How Romans coped with the anxieties and risks of childbirth

Across the vast expanse of the Roman Empire, anxieties about childbirth tied individuals to one another, to the highest levels of imperial politics, even to the movements of the stars. Birthing Romans sheds critical light on the diverse ways pregnancy and childbirth were understood, experienced, and managed in ancient Rome during the first three centuries of the Common Era.

In this beautifully written book, Anna Bonnell Freidin asks how inhabitants of the Roman Empire—especially women and girls—understood their bodies and constructed communities of care to mitigate and make sense of the risks of pregnancy and childbirth. Drawing on medical texts, legal documents, poetry, amulets, funerary art, and more, she shows how these communities were deeply human yet never just human. Freidin demonstrates how patients and caregivers took their place alongside divine and material agencies to guard against the risks inherent to childbearing. She vividly illustrates how these efforts and vital networks offer a new window onto Romans’ anxieties about order, hierarchy, and the individual’s place in the empire and cosmos.

Unearthing a risky world that is both familiar and not our own, Birthing Romans reveals how mistakes, misfortunes, and interventions in childbearing were seen to have far-reaching consequences, reverberating across generations and altering the course of people’s lives, their family histories, and even the fate of an empire.

Frances Oldham Kelsey et sa bataille contre la thalidomide

Frances Oldham Kelsey, the FDA, and the Battle against Thalidomide

Cheryl Krasnick Warsh

 
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press (May 21, 2024)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 424 pages
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0197632543



The woman scientist who saved Americans from thalidomide

In the early 1960s, Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration became one of the most celebrated women in America when she prevented a deadly sedative from entering the U.S. market. A Canadian-born pharmacologist and physician, Kelsey saved countless Americans from the devastating side effects of thalidomide, a drug routinely given to pregnant women to prevent morning sickness.

As the FDA medical officer charged with reviewing Merrell Pharmaceutical's application for approval in 1960-61, Kelsey was unconvinced that there was sufficient evidence of the drug's efficacy and safety. Despite substantial pressure, she held her ground for nineteen months while the extent of the drug's worldwide damage became known-thousands of stillborn babies, as well as at least 10,000 children across 46 countries born with severe deformities such as missing limbs, arms and legs that resembled flippers, and improperly developed eyes, ears, and other organs.

As a result of Kelsey's efforts, thalidomide was never sold in the United States. The incident led Congress to pass the 1962 Drug Amendment, which fundamentally changed drug regulation in America. Those regulations, still in force today, required pharmaceutical companies to conduct phased clinical trials, obtain informed consent from participants in drug testing, and warn the FDA of adverse effects, and it granted the FDA important controls over prescription-drug advertising.

One of a small minority of women to earn an advanced degree in science in the 1930s, Kelsey faced challenges that resonate with women scientists to this day. Revered by the public as a “good mother of science,” she went on to act as a formidable gatekeeper against other suspect drugs, such as diesthylstilbestrol (DES) and laetrile. As part of the team that tested anti-malarial drugs on prisoner volunteers during World War II, she later was instrumental in the formulation of ethical protocols for drug testing on prisoners and the vulnerable, including the elderly and children. Yet behind the public adulation, she faced professional jealousies and glass ceilings, political interference with FDA's actions, and ongoing hostility from pharmaceutical industry officials. She was sustained and supported by family and friends, co-workers and mentors, and a lifetime commitment to good science.

Based upon FDA archival records, private family papers, and interviews with family and colleagues, this biography brings to light the efforts and legacy of a pioneering woman of science whose contributions are still influential today.

L'histoire de la césarienne

Invisible Labor: The Untold Story of the Cesarean Section

 Rachel Somerstein



Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ecco (June 4, 2024)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0063264412
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0063264410



An incisive yet personal look at the science and history of the most common surgery performed in America—the cesarean section—and an exposé on the disturbing state of maternal medical care

When Rachel Somerstein had an unplanned C-section with her first child, the experience was anything but “routine.” A series of errors by her clinicians led to a real-life nightmare: surgery without anesthesia. The ensuing mental and physical complications left her traumatized and searching for answers about how things could have gone so wrong.

In the United States, one in three babies is born via C-section, a rate that has grown exponentially over the past fifty years. And while in most cases the procedure is safe, it is not without significant, sometimes life-changing consequences, many of which affect people of color disproportionately. With C-sections all but invisible in popular culture and pregnancy guides, new mothers are often left to navigate these obstacles on their own.

Somerstein weaves personal narrative and investigative journalism with medical, social, and cultural history to reveal the operation’s surprising evolution, from its early practice on enslaved women to its excessive promotion by modern medical practitioners. She uncovers the current-day failures of the medical system, showing how pregnant women's agency is regularly disregarded by providers who, motivated by fear of litigation or a hospital’s commitment to efficiency, make far-reaching and deeply personal decisions on behalf of their patients. She also examines what prevailing maternal and medical attitudes toward C-sections tell us about American culture.

Invisible Labor lifts the veil on C-sections so that people can make choices about pregnancy and surgical birth with greater knowledge of the risks, benefits, and alternatives, with information on topics including:

• VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean)and repeat c-section
• Pain and pain management during childbirth
• How C-sections can affect family planning
• The valuable role of midwives and doulas in the birth experience
• The myths behind “natural” childbirth
• How limitations put on reproductive rights impact pregnant people

With deep feeling and authority, Somerstein offers support to others who have had difficult or traumatic birth experiences, as well as hope for new forms of reproductive justice.

Relire Georges Canguilhem à partir des inédits

Relire Georges Canguilhem à partir des inédits 

 

Journée d’étude internationale

 

Mardi 18 juin, de 9h30 à 18h45.

Amphithéâtre Evariste Galois, au sous-sol du nouveau bâtiment Rataud, École Normale supérieure PSL, au 45 rue d'Ulm, Paris.



Cet événement reçoit le soutien de PhilOfr - République des Savoirs (UAR 3608), du CAPHÉS (Centre d’archives en philosophie, histoire et édition des sciences) et du programme gradué Translitteræ.


9h30 : Accueil

OUVERTURE

9h45-10h30 Conférence inaugurale de Maël Montévil (chargé de recherche au CNRS, ENS-PSL, République des savoirs) : Normativité et quelques enjeux théoriques contemporains

MATIN : PSYCHOLOGIE, ANTHROPOLOGIE, AXIOLOGIE

10h30-11h15 Raffaele Grandoni (doctorant à l’université de Warwick) : La science, la vérité, la vie : lire l’épistémologie de Canguilhem à travers sa philosophie de la valeur

11h15-11h30 : Pause café

11h30-12h15 Océane Gustave (doctorante à l’ENS-PSL), Le concept d’anthropologie dans la philosophie de Georges Canguilhem

12h15-13h Franck Le Roux (doctorant à l’Université Paris-Cité) : Qu’est-ce que la psychologie avant « Qu’est-ce que la psychologie ? » ?

13h-14h30 : Repas

APRÈS-MIDI : NORMES VITALES, NORMES SOCIALES

14h30-15h15 Maëlle Polsinelli (doctorante à l’ENS-PSL), L’idéologie et le normal, déterminer l’ordre social ? Lecture du Normal et le Pathologique. Nouvelles réflexions (1963-1966)

15h15-16h Arto Charpentier (post-doctorant à l’ENS-PSL) : Toi aussi tu choisiras ton sexe. Georges Canguilhem sur un cas d’intersexuation

16h-16h15 : Pause

16h15-17h Giulia Gandolfi (post-doctorante à l’université Ca’ Foscari, Venise) : Georges Canguilhem et l’usage du quantitatif à travers les âges : de la statistique du XIXe siècle à la biomédecine contemporaine

17h-17h45 Marco Dal Pozzolo (doctorant et ATER à l’Université de Bourgogne) : Qu’est-ce que s’adapter ? Les significations multiples de l’adaptation chez Canguilhem, à partir d’une conférence inédite sur la « réadaptation motrice ».

17h45-18h : Pause

CLÔTURE

18h-18h45 Conférence conclusive d’Andrea Angelini (maître de conférence à l’Université Paris 8 Saint-Denis, LLCP) : “Possibilisme” et pluralisme normatif. Canguilhem entre géographie humaine et écologie.


Comité d’organisation :

- Arto CHARPENTIER (post-doctorant en philosophie à l’ENS-PSL, coordinateur des activités scientifiques de PhilOfr, une équipe de l'UAR 3608 République des Savoirs)
- Océane GUSTAVE (doctorante en philosophie à l’ENS-PSL ; PhilOfr, UAR 3608 République des Savoirs)

Homosexualité, révolution américaine

Vicious and Immoral. Homosexuality, the American Revolution, and the Trials of Robert Newburgh

John Gilbert McCurdy



Johns Hopkins University Press
June 4, 2024

On the eve of the American Revolution, the British army considered the case of a chaplain, Robert Newburgh, who had been accused of having sex with a man. Newburgh's enemies cited his flamboyant appearance, defiance of military authority, and seduction of soldiers as proof of his low character. Consumed by fears that the British Empire would soon be torn asunder, his opponents claimed that these supposed crimes against nature translated to crimes against the king.

In Vicious and Immoral, historian John McCurdy tells this compelling story of male intimacy and provides an unparalleled glimpse inside eighteenth-century perceptions of queerness. By demanding to have his case heard, Newburgh invoked Enlightenment ideals of equality, arguing passionately that his style of dress and manner should not affect his place in the army or society. His accusers equated queer behavior with rebellion, and his defenders would go on to join the American cause. Newburgh's trial offers some clues to understanding a peculiarity of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century: while gay acts were prohibited by law in much of the British empire, the newly formed United States was comparatively uninterested in legislating against same-sex intimacy.

McCurdy imagines what life was like for a gay man in early America and captures the voices of those who loved and hated Newburgh, revealing how sexuality and revolution informed one another. Vicious and Immoral is the first book to place homosexuality in conversation with the American Revolution, and it dares us to rethink the place of LGBTQ people in the founding of the nation.

Épidémies et crises de mortalité dans l’Europe médiévale et moderne

Epidemics and mortality crises in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (3): Chronology and socio-demographic and economic effects

International colloquium
 

Hybrid form, on 19-21 June 2024 at the University of Lleida.
To get the link to the event, please, write to: albert.reixach@udl.cat



Edifici Rectorat, Sala de Juntes, 2n pis
19, 20 and 21 June 2024
 

Studies of the Black Death and its demographic, social and economic consequences have focused more on the Black Death (1347-1351), thought to be the deadliest plague episode of the Middle Ages and early modern era, and the outbreaks that followed it in the second half of the 14th century. The precise chronology of the plague waves in the 15th and early 16th centuries remains uncertain, as do their demographic effects and the social bias of mortality.
There is a large body of literature on the demographic, social and economic consequences of the Black Death and subsequent outbreaks of bubonic plague, with geographical asymmetries (some regions have been studied much more than others) and widely divergent results. Data on the mortality rates of each plague outbreak in the different towns of the Crown of Aragon and Castile are very diverse and imprecise, making it impossible to reach conclusions on a regional or supra-regional scale.
The social bias of mortality seems to change from 1400 onwards. In well-studied cases such as Italy, it seems that the plague became increasingly socially exclusive, mainly targeting the poor, whereas the better-off could have learned to protect themselves against the plague. It also seems that some plague-related deaths affected women more than men. However, before 1560, the recording of deaths and burials was far from systematic, and the intensity and frequency of mortality, as well as the social bias in mortality, still raise many questions.
Very little is known about the economic consequences of epidemic mortality crises, although certain aspects have been studied, such as the impact of the Black Death on wage trends, on the living standards of the rural and urban population, and on seigneurial revenues. Nonetheless, some authors argue that the Black Death gave rise to a demographic regime shift in Europe that laid the foundations for the Great Divergence. Others attribute the origin of the Little Divergence to the plague.
 

19 June 2024
16h00
Welcome and Introduction
In memoriam of Marie Kelleher (1970-2024)
 

1st Session Chairs: Marcelo Candido da Silva (Universidade de São Paulo) and Dominique Castex (PACEA, Université de Bordeaux - CNRS)

16h45 Dominique Castex (PACEA, Université de Bordeaux-CNRS) and Sacha Kacki (PACEA, Université de Bordeaux-CNRS / Durham University) Des anomalies démographiques révélatrices d’une épidémie de peste au sein des populations archéologiques

17h30 Zdeněk Vytlačil (Univerzita Karlova - National Museum, Praha)
Isotope analyses in Justinian plague research: A case of Saint-Doulchard
 

18h15 Break
 

18h45 Sacha Kacki (PACEA, Université de Bordeaux-CNRS / Durham University) Répercussions de la Peste noire sur l’alimentation des populations du Sud de la France : nouvelles données issues d’analyses isotopiques de séries squelettiques toulousaines

19h30 Timothy Newfield (Georgetown University) When can we talk about smallpox? Non-plague epidemics and smallpox’s prickly premodern past

20 June 2024
2nd Session
Chairs: Thomas Barton (University of San Diego) and Pere Verdés Pijuan (Institució Milà i Fontanals de Recerca en Humanitats – CSIC, Barcelona)

9h30 Marcelo Cândido da Silva (Universidade de São Paulo) Epidemics and famines in the post-Roman world: towards a syndemic approach?

10h15 Joan Maltas Montoro (Universitat de Lleida) Mortality crises before the Black Death in Catalonia (1300-1348): chronology and impact

11h00 Break

11h30 Pere Benito i Monclús and Albert Reixach Sala (Universitat de Lleida) Assessing the chronology and impact of epidemics and mortality crises in Catalonia (1348-1530)

12h15 André Filipe Oliveira da Silva (CITCEM – Universidade do Porto / CIDEHUS – Universidade de Évora) Filling a void: the challenges of 14th century Portuguese sources for the study of epidemics
 

13h00 Alberto Luongo (Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata)
The socio-economic consequences of demographic decline in 14th century Italy: towards new chronologies
 

14h00 – Lunch
 

Excursion to Tàrrega 

16h00 Transfer from Lleida to Tàrrega

17h00 Guided visit to the exhibition “Tragèdia al call. Tàrrega 1348” at the Museu Comarcal de l’Urgell-Tàrrega, Jewish quarter (call) of Tàrrega and house of the Jewish philosopher and physician of the 15th century Avraham Xalom

19h30 Back to Lleida

21 June 2024
3rd Session
Chairs: Alexis Wilkin (Université Libre de Bruxelles) and Pere Benito i Monclús (Universitat de Lleida)

9h00 Tim Soens (Universiteit Antwerpen) The Black Death and the Commoner: differential experiences of plague in the late medieval Low Countries

9h45 Stef Espeel (Universiteit Antwerpen) Disruption in patterns of production and consumption of large landlords during the plague episodes of 14th-century Flanders

10h30 Break

11h00 Davide Cristoferi (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
Agrarian change after the Black Death: labour regulations, fiscal policies and land consolidation in Florence and Siena (c. 1350-1430)

11h45 Laura Miquel (Universitat de València)
The Black Death in Tortosa: social inequality before and after 1348

12h30 Thomas Barton (University of San Diego)
Municipal Responses to Epidemics in Tortosa and the Baix Ebre at the end of the 14th century

13h15 – Lunch

15h00 Pablo Ortego Rico (Universidad de Málaga)
Recaudar los tributos y pagar las obligaciones en tiempos de peste: Castilla, ca. 1470-1509
Conclusions

15h45
Alexis Wilkin (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
 

Scientific organising committee
Pere BENITO i MONCLÚS Universitat de Lleida
Marcelo CÂNDIDO DA SILVA Universidade de São Paulo
Dominique CASTEX PACEA, Université de Bordeaux-CNRS
Pere VERDÉS i PIJUAN Institució Milà i Fontanals d’Investigació en Humanitats - CSIC
Alexis WILKIN Université Libre de Bruxelles
 

Scientific Advisory Board
Wim BLOCKMANS Universiteit Leiden
Jean-Pierre DEVROEY
Université Libre de Bruxelles
Laurent FELLER
Université de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
Antoni FURIÓ
Universitat de València
Luciano PALERMO
Istituto Nazionale di Studi Romani
Gabriella PICCINNI
Università di Siena
Antoni RIERA i MELIS
Institut d’Estudis Catalans
 

Technical coordination
Albert REIXACH i SALA Universitat de Lleida
 

Inscription to:
albert.reixach@udl.cat