Author: Valerie Ann Johnson

Valerie Ann Johnson is the Mott Distinguished Professor of Women’s Studies and Director of Africana Women’s Studies at Bennett College. She holds a Ph.D. in Medical Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley, an M.A. in Sociology from Atlanta University and a B.A. in Sociology from Spelman College. She is a member of the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, Conservation Council of North Carolina and the board of Our Children’s Place and the Scarritt-Bennett Center in Nashville, Tennessee. She serves on the North Carolina Historical Commission and the Advisory Board for The Women’s Table.

Oscar, I Didn’t Know it Mattered

When Kathryn Bigelow received an academy award nomination this year for best director for her film, The Hurt Locker, it barely caught my attention. Her movie wasn’t one I would be inclined to see.

But as buzz around the Oscars increase, it dawned on me that I couldn’t remember whether or not a woman had ever won an Oscar for best director. Perhaps a woman had and I hadn’t noticed?

Medical Ethics, Race and Henrietta Lacks’ “Magic” Cells

Doctors needed human cells to study cervical cancer’s progression, but despite decades of effort they had been unable to keep human cells alive in culture. “Henrietta’s were different: They reproduced an entire generation every 24 hours, and they never stopped,” writes Rebecca Skloot, a science journalist, in her new book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. “They became the first immortal cells ever grown in a laboratory.”