Karen Bloom Gevirtz

A long-time academic, I am now a full-time writer focused on the relationship between seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British writing, gender, and culture. My forthcoming book, The Apothecary’s Wife: The Hidden History of Medicine and How it Became a Commodity (Head of Zeus/University of California Press, 2024), received a starred review from Kirkus. In this latest work, I reveal how during the Scientific Revolution and despite offering the exact same products, medical professionals persuaded people to replace women’s domestic medicine with commercial medicine. This cultural shift pushed women out of the medical system and paved the way for today’s for-profit healthcare system. I’ve spent much of my career at the intersection of the humanities and science. At Brown University, I majored in English while taking pre-med courses and working as a research assistant in a neurochemistry lab. I went on to become a tenured English professor, eventually teaching Gender Studies and Medical Humanities, as well. My research has gained international recognition and has been funded by organizations including the Mellon Foundation, the Folger Shakespeare Library, Chawton House Library, and the Institute for Advanced Studies at Loughborough University. I have been interviewed by HuffPost, Talk/Radio, and the Wall Street Journal, as well as podcasts including BBC 4's HistoryExtra, The Standard Issue, and History Rage.