Skip to content
Julia Métraux

Julia Métraux

Julia Métraux is a health and culture writer whose work has appeared in Narratively, The Tempest, BUST, and Briarpatch Magazine. You can follow her on Twitter at @metraux_julia and read more of her work at https://juliasmetraux.journoportfolio.com/

The Gang Busters sound effects team, 1937

The Rise and Fall of “True Crime” Radio Dramas

Depictions of poor, non-white victims and informants led working-class and rural listeners to turn against the genre.
Vials of Smallpox vaccinations alongside the medical tools to administer the vaccine

How the US Handled Its First Mpox Outbreak

Can the CDC and other health organizations apply the lessons learned in 2003?
Surgical tools laid out

How Television Can (De)Stigmatize Abortion

Fictional representations of procedures and providers mirror—but may also undermine—popular attitudes on abortion.
Peoples Park in Berkeley on April 1 2021

Intentional Unhoused Communities in Berkeley

Intentional communities provide opportunities for unhoused residents, but they also draw institutional criticism.
A woman's sari and feet

Fighting for Sex Workers’ Rights in India

Labor unions for sex workers reveal how sexuality, gender, and caste intersect in a precarious and often dangerous work environment.
A #buryyourgays hashtag over a black and white drawing of a cemetery

Can Fan Hashtag Campaigns Stop the “Bury Your Gays” Trope?

Organized fan hashtag campaigns put pressure on the entertainment industry to improve their writing for and treatment of LGBTQ+ characters.
Circus Amok's Jenny Romaine by David Shankbone, New York City

How Queer Jews Reclaimed Yiddish

Queer Yiddishkeit challenges the notion that Yiddish is inherently heteronormative or conservative.
Boy Scouts Pick Fruit For Jam at a Fruit-picking Camp Near Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, 1944

Skipping School for Harvest Camp

As more young adults joined the military or worked in wartime industries, England turned to children to fill the growing gap in agricultural labor.
Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch

From Screaming to Singing

How one German choir changed the way we think about, practice, and perform choral music.
The gravestone of Ginger Goodwin

Was There a Conspiracy to Kill a Canadian Labor Activist?

While conspiracy theories about Ginger Goodwin’s death may interest some, these complicated explanations deflect our attention from real issues.
From Dawn of the Dead

The Living Dead Embody Our Worst Fears

Zombie movies are scary fun, but they also help us examine our anxieties about contagious disease and unstoppable chaos.
From the 1923 film, Love, Life and Laughter

How “Talkies” Disrupted Movies for Deaf People

The years of silent films are sometimes described as a "golden era" in the cultural history of the American Deaf community.
A Parisian evening gown

Can You Copyright a Dress?

Fashion houses in 1920s Paris used copyright laws to protect their designs. In New York, not so much.
Barabbas

A Passover Tradition to Promote Jewish Unity

Freeing a prisoner—a gesture of generosity and benevolence—may have been a way to bring together a fractured spiritual community.
A hand holding a smartphone with a tumblr logo

How Tumblr Helps Youth Continue to Be Seen And Heard

Tumblr may be obsolete for the first generation or two of Internet users, but Gen Z has taken it on as a platform for representation online.
Alexander Berkman speaks at Socialist meeting in Union Square, New York, on May Day, 1908

The NYC –> RUS Yiddish Socialist Pipeline

At the turn of the twentieth century, Yiddish became the language of political organizing for Russian Jews, thanks to the flow of literature from New York.
An image of Marshall Applewhite from the poster for the docuseries Heaven's Gate: The Cult of Cults

Behind the Curtain of the Heaven’s Gate Cult

On the 25th anniversary of UFO cult Heaven's Gate's mass suicide, a religion scholar examines its theology and doctrines in the context of the New Age Movement.
the picket line outside Eaton’s during the 1984-85 strike

The Working Class Roots of Canadian Feminism

The increased participation of women in labor helped create the Canadian feminist movement.
A film still from The Batman

Batman: A Hero or a New ‘Mr. Hyde’?

The parallels between Bruce Wayne/Batman and Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde are examined through the lenses of Gothic literature and psychological symbolism.
A woman with cerebral palsy using her phone

Navigating Dating Apps While Disabled

How disabled people use dating apps, whether specific to their communit(ies) or not, can raise personal questions about how to present themselves.
Two pins calling for Angela Davis to be freed from prison

50 Years On: How Angela Davis’ Focus Changed in Jail

In a 2012 interview published in Social Justice, Angela Davis spoke about her detention in jail and how it informed her work on abolition and feminism.
Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes in 2019

Court Trials: The Plot Drives the “Story”

Trials create narratives that are "plot-driven." When judges attempt to see them as "character-driven," real people can be denied justice.
George Psalmanazar

Grifting In The 18th Century: The Grift Remains the Same

When faking an identity, it helps to choose something foreign to your audience.
Betty White in the audience at the 39th AFI Life Achievement Award honoring Morgan Freeman held at Sony Pictures Studios on June 9, 2011 in Culver City, California.

How Consumers Cope With Celebrity Deaths

The sale of celebrity memorabilia increases in the weeks following their death.
Shelley Morningsong, 2019 Nammy Arits of the Year, with Fabian Fontenelle

The Native American Music Awards

Native American musicians and performers have been honored since 1998 by the Nammys.