Not Tonight: Author Talk with Joanna Kempner

Joanna Kempner, associate professor of sociology at Rutgers University, delivered a talk about her book, Not Tonight: Migraine and the Politics of Gender and Health, on Tuesday, July 7 at the Alexander Library.In Not Tonight, published in 2014 by the University of Chicago Press, Kempner argues that the attitude of dismissal toward migraine and the stigmas attached to its sufferers are products of a long history of stereotypical thinking about gender and pain. Kempner draws on sociology, anthropology, literature, history, and science to track feminized ideas about migraine from the disorder’s 19th century identification with neurotic women and effete, overly intellectual men, through the 1940s association of migraine with detached, sexually distant housewives, to contemporary notions of the over-sensitive “migraine brain.” Kempner shows that, for years, these ideas have radically impacted medical practice, research funding, and the making of policies for people in pain.Learn more about Kempner and the event here: http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/news/author-talk-joanna-kempner-not-tonight-tuesday-july-7This event was recorded by RU-tv. Learn more about them here: http://rutv.rutgers.edu/