Amy Deneson
AMY DENESON is a writer in New York via the Heartland. Her reviews of activist art and other essays have contributed to the New York Times, The Guardian, Salon, Bust, Curve magazine, and more. All of her raves can be read at amydeneson.com.
In Conversation
LOLA FLASH
with Amy Deneson
Lola Flash’s retrospective at Pen + Brush, 1986 to Present, honors creative activism at its finest. As a queer black woman, Flash, at age 59, has used the medium of photography and photographic processes to confront the dual injustice of invisibility and stereotypical portrayals of gender, sexuality, race, and age for over three decades.
Head Over Heels
By Amy DenesonWhen I experience Kay Rosen’s text-based work, she tickles my inner word-nerd in the mind and heart, oftentimes coaxing a belly laugh. Her current solo exhibition, H Is for House, at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum once again draws out such delight.
In Conversation
WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT CANNABIS:
Alyson Martin and Nushin Rashidian with Amy Deneson
he professional networking organization Women Grow invited investigative journalists Alyson Martin and Nushin Rashidian to discuss their critically acclaimed book A New Leaf with a room full of budding cannabis entrepreneurs.
How To Treat Intersex People
By Amy DenesonIntersex people have been mistreated for a long time. Two doctors—one a professor, the other a surgeon—wrote books to shine light on this injustice. In Galileo’s Middle Finger, Dr. Alice Dreger, a professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern University, examines the enduring history of unethical medical practices imposed on intersex patients.
On “Gay Conversion” Therapy
By Amy DenesonPractices claiming to convert sexual orientation or gender identity and to cure the mental illnesses or developmental disorders that purportedly cause same-sex attraction had been banned in five states and the District of Columbia.
Pure Art
By Amy Deneson“Believing that I am worth waiting for, I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, my friends, my future mate, and my future children to a lifetime of purity including sexual purity from this day until the day I enter a committed, faithful, lifetime marriage.” —A Daughter’s Purity Pledge
MY GODDAMN FLESH
By Amy DenesonAs the daughter of a respected rabbi, Leah Vincent was born into a world that worshiped messiahs, men, and modesty in suburban Pittsburg. A middle child in a Yeshivish family of 13 devoted to an ultra-orthodox sect of Judaism, Vincent writes, “I had been groomed to handle men—God, my father, my future husband—with relentless worship.
