Recommended Reading for 22 July 2010

Warning: Offsite links are not safe spaces. Articles and comments in the links may contain ableist, sexist, and other -ist language and ideas of varying intensity. Opinions expressed in the articles may not reflect the opinions held by the compiler of the post and links are provided as topics of interest and exploration only. I attempt to provide extra warnings for material like extreme violence/rape; however, your triggers/issues may vary, so please read with care.

Repeating Islands: Call for Submissions:

Simone A. James Alexander and Dorsía Smith Silva are seeking submissions for an edited collection on Caribbean Mothering (to be published in Fall 2012).

This anthology will examine the diverse and complex experiences of motherhood and mothering from a broad, interdisciplinary perspective. The organizers welcome submissions that explore major cultural, political, historical, and economic factors that influence the lives of Caribbean mothers, such as migration and transnationalism. Also encouraged are writings that represent the relationships between Caribbean mothers and their children; perspectives of single Caribbean mothers; relationships of extended motherhood in Caribbean communities; and colonial, post-colonial, and modern representations of Caribbean motherhood from literary, historical, biological, sociological, political, socioeconomic, ethnic, and media perspectives. This incorporation of a variety of disciplines and methodologies will give insight to the issues on mothering within the Caribbean context and provide a space that recognizes the significance of Caribbean mothering. The aim of this volume is to foster work on mothering that integrates the disciplines of feminist ideologies, literary criticism, and cultural analysis as well as represent the diversity of the Caribbean islands and the Caribbean Diaspora.

WIRED: Danger Room: Obama Loves This Freaky PTSD Treatmen; The Pentagon, Not So Much

Concerns over risks, especially that the injection can trigger seizures, hit a key artery or puncture the lung, are valid, Lipov admits. Still, they’re rare: A 1992 study evaluating 45,000 SGB cases found adverse effects in 20 patients. And Lipov has come up with a distinct method, which he calls the “Chicago Block,” that targets the C6 vertebra rather than the traditional C7. Because C6 is farther from important arteries and the lungs, it’s less likely to be implicated in problems during an SGB procedure.

“Realistically, 1 in 100,000 people might have serious complications,” he admits. “Say we treat 300,000 veterans — that’s three people. Compare that to the military’s suicide rate.”

Online Journal: Don’t you know there’s a war going on?

For an American military already stretched to the cracking point, the human cost spreads beyond the immediate casualties of the battlefield. June was the worth month ever recorded for US Army suicides, the service reported last Thursday, with soldiers killing themselves at the rate of one per day, 32 confirmed or suspected in all. Twenty-two of them had been in combat; 10 had been deployed two to four times. What’s more, by the spring of 2009, according to The Washington Post, “The percentage of the Army’s most severely wounded troops who were suffering from PTSD [post traumatic stress disorder] or traumatic brain injury had climbed to about 50 percent, from 38 percent a year earlier.”

The one bit of good news: “Senior commanders have reached a turning point,” the Post reported on Sunday. “After nine years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, they are beginning to recognize age-old legacies of the battlefield — once known as shellshock or battle fatigue — as combat wounds, not signs of weakness. [Army Vice Chief of Staff] Gen. Peter Chiarelli . . . has been especially outspoken. ‘PTSD is not a figment of someone’s imagination,’ Chiarelli lectured an auditorium of skeptical sergeants last fall. ‘It is a cruel physiological thing.’”

Sanguinity: To Kill a Mockingbird, Huck Finn, High School Curriculums, and Canon

One huge tension coming up is the ought/is problem. Yes, I think you could probably do a great lesson plan that includes [To Kill A Mockingbird] if you teach TKAM from a historiographical perspective (as one might do when studying sketchy roadside historical markers): who wrote it? when? why? why did they write it this way? what else was going on then? who did it become popular with? why? And so on. I’d also pair it with Mildred Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry to open up a discussion of other ways a similar story could be told, and differing opinions about how similar characters or situations would play out. (I cannot find the comment now, but someone pointed out that TKAM casts Tom Robinson as a minor, almost throw-away character in the story of Tom Robinson being on trial for his life!) I like Bingo’s suggestions of how to demonstrate that the issues of racism in TKAM are not ancient history, nor confined to the South. I’d also incorporate many of Larissa’s ideas about teaching Huck Finn, if I could find parallel resources to do it with TKAM (or leverage the Huck Finn resources to work with TKAM). Additionally, because TKAM and Huck Finn are both canon, I think you can have an excellent discussion of the phenomenon of canon, how canon got to be canon, what doesn’t appear in canon, how does canon shape and/or reflect society, etc. Most importantly, I would try to pull all this off so that the discussions are worthwhile for students of color — I wouldn’t want this to become the Great Race Learning Experience for the white kids, while the black kids are sitting there having to process/deflect/cope with the racism in the novel(s) but not getting anything out of it to make their stress worthwhile.

If you’re on Delicious, feel free to tag entries ‘disfem’ or ‘disfeminists,’ or ‘for:feminists’ to bring them to our attention! Link recommendations can also be emailed to recreading[@]disabledfeminists[.]com

About Ouyang Dan

is an extremely proggy-liberal, formerly single mommy, Native American, invisibly disabled, U.S. Navy Veteran, social justice activist and aspiring freelance writer currently living in South Korea on Uncle Sam's dime. She has a super human tolerance for caffeine and chocolate and believes she should use those powers for good. She said should. She is not a concise person, and sometimes comes on a little aggressively in comments. Sometimes her right arm still twitches when military brass walks past her, but she would rather be reading YA Lit or pwning n00bs. She can be found being cliche about music, overthinking pop culture, and grumbling about whatever else suits her fancy at her personal website, random babble.... She also writes about military issues for Change.org's Women's Rights blog. If you have something interesting to say email her at ouyangdan [at] disabledfeminists [dot] com. Lawyers in Italy looking to hold lottery winnings in her bank account may wait longer for reply.

One thought on “Recommended Reading for 22 July 2010

  1. The Wired article was quite interesting. I have to say that I have a knee-jerk reaction to anything that involves potentially dangerous and unproven treatment for PWD. There are too many historical examples of our bodily autonomy being violated, often in the worst ways imaginable. There is too much of this shit going on today. It does seem, however, that there is some solid science suggesting that severe complications are rare. I would still need to know more, however. What about “mild” complications? How are they classifying this? I also don’t like that the doctor’s comments implied that no one who receives this treatment will commit suicide or experience further mental health issues. I highly doubt that this treatment works for absolutely everybody, and it’s dangerous to promote supposed cure-all solutions. (That’s actually a sign of potential pseudoscience, too.) I hope that people who receive this treatment aren’t cut off from other forms of support, counseling, etc.

    Having said that, people should probably be allowed to receive this treatment with fully informed consent.

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