Boudicca // This essay was originally published in Scalawag and is reprinted here courtesy of Exchange for Change. Several similar first-person accounts of COVID-19 in prison will appear in the forthcoming anthology Hear Us. We watched the inexorable spread of COVID-19 on World News Tonight. Still, it did not make much of an impression on the…
Author: guestwriter
COVID-19 and the American Correctional System: Too Little, Too Late
Khalil A. Cumberbatch // More than a year after the coronavirus began extending its deadly reach around the globe, we have begun to take stock of lessons learned. From the proper use of masks to testing standards, social distancing norms, and vaccination distribution, our society has adapted well to the necessary realities of surviving a…
Abolition Mathematics: The Just Mathematics Collective
In the age of big data, machine learning, smart bombs, and facial recognition, that mathematical science plays an immeasurable—and political—role in shaping our world is uncontestable. Academically speaking, mathematics is somewhat artificially divided into two camps: applied and pure. It would be reasonable to believe that it is the applied mathematicians who are responsible for…
Structural Inequality, the Carceral State and the Need for New Language in the COVID-19 Pandemic
C. Brandon Ogbunu // The notion that drivers of COVID-19 disparities are not only historical, but contemporary, came to light in the tragedy involving Susan Moore, a black woman family physician who had circulated a video on social media in early December 2020 that explained her racially biased treatment in the hospital. She died of…
Prison Experiments
Michael Ralph and Maya Singhal // In the Marvel comic series by the same name, Luke Cage becomes the unfortunate victim of sinister prison science. Incarcerated for a crime he did not commit, Cage is targeted by a racist corrections officer when he is recruited for a prison experiment. When the doctor conducting this operation…
Plague as Disciplinary Project: COVID in Chicago
Erin Williams // To see “Plague as Disciplinary Project” with full-size images and complete footnotes, please click the button below to download a PDF. Author bio: Erin Williams is a writer, an illustrator, and the author of Commute: An Illustrated Memoir of Female Shame.
Special Issue: On Police, Prison, and Plagues
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,…
Book Review: Medicine is War: The Martial Metaphor in Victorian Literature and Culture by Lorenzo Servitje
Warren Kluber // Two men in military fatigues flank the entrance of an unmarked white tent; this must be the vaccination site. As I take my place in line, I feel my jaw instinctively tighten and my posture straighten, as if my body— and not just my registration ticket—is about to be inspected. The woman…
How to Subvert the Illness Narrative: An Interview with Writer David Ryan
Barbara Lock, MD // When I talked with writer and writing teacher David Ryan in mid-April 2021, more than a year into the pandemic, I was relieved to find his bright generosity intact. Ryan is my former writing professor. Class conversation was just as likely to hit on his heady days as drummer for The…
Muscle Toning or Virtue Honing?: Alexi Pappas and the Rise of Virtue Ethics in Fitness Discourse
Christina Fogarasi // Content Warning: suicidal ideation; depression; disordered eating In October 2020, celebrity cycling instructor Ally Love kicked off the second season of “Sundays with Love,” an immersive, reflective at-home cycling experience focused on “creating a sensation of deep connection with yourself and with fellow Members up and down the Leaderboard.” Peloton—an elite home…