Khaleel Grant, Elsa Hardy, Max Mishler, and Elizabeth Ross // Starting in December of 2020, a series of rebellions rocked the St. Louis City Justice Center (CJC) and the St. Louis City Minimum Security Institution (MSI), frequently referred to as “the Workhouse.” People incarcerated at both institutions broke out of their cells, detained correctional officers,…
What does it mean to be a triplet anyways?
Steven Rhue// What is a triplet anyways? Well, . . . me. I am one of three. A sibling to a brother and a sister. We were born in the same year, on the same day, at approximately the same time, and as it would imply, we are the same age. A more technical explanation…
Ri k’ak’a tzij: Kaqchikel Maya Neologisms in Response to COVID-19
Tiffany D. Creegan Miller, PhD // Though Guatemala is a relatively small country in northern Central America, it boasts of a robust multilingual and multicultural diversity. In addition to Spanish (the official language), Guatemala is also the home to 22 Maya languages, and two other Indigenous languages: Garífuna and Xinca. Within this ethnolinguistic landscape, Kaqchikel…
A double-edged pandemic
Sasheenie Moodley & Ebony Hilton // Long Covid (also known as long-haul Covid, post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection, and chronic Covid) has been shown to include various long-term respiratory, cardiac, and brain complications1 (see Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome2) as well as body pain, insomnia, psychological challenges.3 Post-mortem examinations show irreversible inflammation (structural changes) in the…
Rethinking Pink: U.S. Breast Cancer Activism in the 20th Century
Sarah Roth // Gracia Buffleben, a queer woman living with metastatic cancer, ascends the stage to receive an award at the Women and Cancer Walk. It is 1996 in San Francisco, and hundreds of women, families, and supporters sprawl in a park in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge. Tables are set up around…
COVID-19 as a New Structural Barrier to Equitable Health among Expectant Black Women in the US
Katey E. Mari// COVID-19 has created yet another structural barrier for equitable access to healthcare and health among Black pregnant women in the US, particularly in areas affected by racial residential segregation. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, discussions surrounding the social determinants of health as they relate to COVID-19 morbidity and mortality trends…
Notes on Grim
Emily Waples// Last week, we reached a point in this pandemic that has been some eighteen months in the making: more Americans have now died of COVID-19 than of the 1918-1919 flu. I’ve been dreading the moment less for the fact of it than for the fanfare, anticipating the precise terms in which I knew…
Bodily Loss in Illness: The Phenomenology of Influenza in Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was
Avril Tynan // It is an uncanny experience to read Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was in 2021. Written in 2013 by renowned Icelandic author Sjón and translated into English by Victoria Cribb in 2016, the short novel tells the story of a pandemic that surges across Europe and devastates the isolated Icelandic capital. The…
“Let Be Assigned Some Narrow Place Enclosed”: Requesting Accommodations Has Always Been Tricky Business
Pasquale S. Toscano // Two events occurred this week. Surprisingly, they interconnected. First, I was hidden away in my dorm room, studying for PhD qualifying exams next month. Second, I got a ticket for parking in a lot that was designated for “visitors” to Princeton’s campus. Scratch that: a warning, and a warning with no…
Anti-Life Legislation: How the reversal of Roe v. Wade may impact IVF viability
Rachel Sender // My senior year of college I was sent to the hospital after fainting in a lobby. I had sudden severe abdominal pain, nausea, and had just begun my period. After ruling out appendicitis and ovarian cysts, the doctor told me that I most likely had endometriosis. This diagnosis was unsurprising as my…
Epidemics, Social Welfare, and “Condition of England” Literature
Benjamin Schacht // When an epidemic sweeps a community—or a pandemic sweeps the globe—the health, but equally the living conditions and resources of others suddenly take on an existential significance. The Covid-19 pandemic has recently made this significance plain in a particularly dramatic way, but long before early 2020, the observation that illness signifies our…
