Lecture and Reading by Bettina Judd, author of Patient

“In Patient Bettina Judd beautifully (and horrifically) draws on historical

evidence of nineteenth-century medical experimentation on black women, 

scholarly explorations of the body and the archive, and personal medical 

history. The result is haunting in its insistence on laying bare these stories as 

they not only articulate experiences of the past but also resonate deeply with 

black women’s experiences with the U.S. medical complex in the present. 

Patient is a brilliant meditation on race, gender, and science and a thrilling 

anthem to black women’s self-knowledge.”

                   —Elsa Barkley Brown, University of Maryland 

The reading and lecture will focus on Bettina Judd’s collection of poems 

titled Patient, which won the Black Lawrence Press Hudson Book Prize and was 

released in November of 2014.  Patient includes poems examining the work of J. 

Marion Sims, 19th century physician who operated on black women  and who is 

memorialized on the South Carolina State House Grounds. 

Judd will also be reading during the Deckle Edge Literary Festival in Columbia, 

February 19-21. 

Born in Baltimore and raised in Southern California, Bettina Judd is an 

interdisciplinary writer, artist and performer. She is an alumna of Spelman 

College and the University of Maryland and is currently Visiting Assistant 

Professor of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at the College of William 

and Mary.