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JOANNA BOURKE

Blogs
Here are my latest blogs! Enjoy.


Abstinence: A History
Is sex a ‘good thing’? Is celibacy dangerous? How can we understand the explosive violence of Incels, those young men (primarily) whose...
Feb 5, 202420 min read


Monogamy: A History
Why is monogamy such a big deal? What can a history of fidelity and infidelity reveal about the changing rights, duties, and social...
Feb 5, 202418 min read


Pornography: A History
Pornography is divisive. It is guaranteed to incite heated debates between people inhabiting different subject positions based on...
Feb 5, 202420 min read


Sexual Perversion: A History
What do we mean when we talk about the ‘perversions’? Who gets to decide what is ‘normal’ or ‘abnormal’? The concept of ‘perversion’ is...
Feb 5, 202420 min read


Sexual Pleasure: A History
Throughout human history, sexual danger has regulated social lives and subjectivities. From the ‘yellow press’ of the late nineteenth...
Feb 5, 202419 min read


Breast Cancer: A History
Suddenly feeling a lump in one’s breast is terrifying, yet it is an experience suffered by one in every eight women in Britain and...
Jan 7, 20246 min read


Sexual Assault: The Courtroom
Review of Heather R. Hlavka and Sameena Mulla’s Bodies in Evidence. Race, Gender, and Science in Sexual Assault Adjudication (New York:...
Jan 3, 20245 min read
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