POPULARITY
Book Notes Adam enjoyed the novel-in-verse Black Flamingo by Dean Atta. Carrie recommends the award-winning parable-in-poems Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky. Michael suggests The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded: Poemsby Molly McCully Brown. Bite Notes Accompany Black Flamingo with Mahalepi, a cool, firm Cyprian pudding. Find the recipe on AtoZ World Foods, a library database. Pair Deaf Republic with orange-flavored vodka from The New Ukrainian Cookbook. A book of poetry set in Appalachia had Michael reaching for a favorite cookbook, Ronni Lundy's Victuals. This time, he chose the Chili Bun Chili recipe.
In this episode we talk about the forced sterilization of Carrie Buck in 1927 at the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded.
This conversation between Scott Walters and Molly McCully Brown is the latest in our podcast series with Lenten Preaching Series speakers and other faith leaders, authors, and creative thinkers around the world. Molly McCully Brown is the author of the poetry collection The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded which was named a New York Times Critics’ Top Book of 2017, and the forthcoming essay collection Places I’ve Taken my Body. Across forms and genres, her work is occupied with place, faith, art, desire, and the complicated, ongoing challenge of an embodied existence, and motivated by the belief that language doesn’t just express but makes reality.
Immerse yourself in the haunting experiences of patients institutionalized in a Southern state-run facility that sterilized patients without their consent until the mid-twentieth century. On this episode of Arts & Letters, we’ll be talking with poet Molly McCully Brown about her poetry collection The Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded , published by Persea Books, which imagines the voices of patients and staff of the Colony. Whatever it is-- home or hospital, graveyard or asylum, government facility or great tract of land slowly ceeding itself back to dust-- ~an excerpt from "The Central Virginia Training Center: formerly The Viriginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded" As explained in the preface of the book: “The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded opened in 1910 in Amherst County, Virginia, as the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics, a government-run residential hospital. "In 1913, the facility also began serving patients it classified
In 1924, a 17-year-old girl was admitted to the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded. The superintendent of the colony classified her as "feeble-minded of the lowest grade, moron class." With that designation, this girl, Carrie Buck, was set on a path she didn't choose. What happened next laid the foundation for the forced sterilization of tens of thousands of people. This week, we revisit a 2018 episode about the eugenics movement and one of the most tragic social experiments in American history.
JCPL librarians bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them. In keeping with the spirit of spring, this month we consider our favorite recent debuts, including "The Philosopher's Flight," "What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia," "Blood Water Paint," and "The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded."
In 1924, a 17-year-old girl was admitted to the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded. The superintendent of the colony classified her as "feeble-minded of the lowest grade, moron class." With that designation, this girl, Carrie Buck, was set on a path she didn't choose. What happened next laid the foundation for the forced sterilization of tens of thousands of people. This week, the story of the eugenics movement and one of the most tragic social experiments in American history.
Carrie Buck was the plaintiff in the notorious Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell (1927) that authorized Buck’s forced sterilization. Producer Miranda Bennett interviews the scholar Paul Lombardo and visits the former Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded in Lynchburg. Read more here: https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Buck_Carrie_Elizabeth_1906-1983
Just outside Lynchburg, Virginia, there is a sprawling mental institution on a hill with a sinister history. For decades, the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded, (now called Central Virginia Training Center) participated in America's forgotten eugenics program. In a landmark ruling in the Supreme Court case of Buck v Bell, eugenics became the law of the land, and set a legal precedent for sterilising anyone deemed “unfit”. Thus began one of the darkest chapters in American history; between 60,000 and 70,000 people were forcibly sterilised across the country.