Friday, November 19, 2010

journals

At the BnF: 
  • Looked through La Croix Jurassienne for anything on the Bobigny trial or on abortion. Despite the fact that it is a local newspaper there was a large article on the front page about he Bobigny trial. It was only one in November but it is significant and makes me want to look through every local newspaper to see of there was coverage of the trial. This is something that I will for sure do but will probably have to wait for my next trip to France. The newspaper also had articles on abortion and sexual education which they were actually in favor of... that was really interesting. I only looked at the year 1972 and the first 4  months of 1973. 
At the BMD: 
  • Found the journal: Choisir. This was a great find because although I had been working through the journal at the BnF at the BMD I can take pictures of it. This is huge news and totally made my day :)
Also learned a new word today: greffer which means to graft which I also had to look up and means to make money by shady or dishonest means. And mec means guy. 


I have not gone through all the courrier in the journal but it will be interesting to see if there is a change in the letters that they print as the years progress. There are women writing to the journal in pretty desperate situations. In the MLAC mail there were still problems after 1975 when abortion was legalized but when a woman was less than 15 weeks into a pregnancy the centers could perform the abortions themselves, however if the pregnancy was more advanced it got m ore complicated. These abortions were and continue to be illegal in France. So, what MLAC did was organize trips to London and Amsterdam where women could have medically practiced late-term abortions. I wonder what Choisir does with letters from women seeking later-term abortions. Do they send them to MLAC? or maybe they have no way of helping them. Choisir was not really set up for that kind of problem but maybe in practice they did participate in organizing trips abroad.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

A long day at the archives

Bibliothèque Nationale de Franc- François Mittterand (BnF) - Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand (BMD)

Yes, that's right I went to 2 archives today. Spent from 9:00a.m-1:30p.m. at the BnF and from 2:30-5:00p.m. at the BMD.

At the BnF I went through Choisir's journal called... yes, you guessed it: Choisir. This turned out to be a gold mine of information and I have only gone through 4 numbers. So I had them save everything for me so I can go back tomorrow and continue working on the journal. I still have not finished looking at all their Laissez- les Vivre files but I kind of needed a break from all the anti-abortion arguments.

At the BMD I took pictures of their dossier on the Bobigny trial. I also finished going through their file on Laissez-les Vivre and took pictures of everything before I got too tired to continue.

Tomorrow, I will go back to the BnF, continue going through the journals and make a reservation to go to the Inathèque. I don't know if I will go back to the BMD tomorrow I might leave that for the day after tomorrow. That way I can spend the whole day at the BnF going through the journals without interruption... :)

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

At the Marguerite Durand

Spent the day at the bibliothèque Marguerite Durand. Looked at the dossier: Laissez-les vivre cote: dos 624.1 LAI
- Took notes but will need to come back and take pictures or make copies of documents especially the publication "Courrier de Laissez-les Vivre," a response to and article in its first number, and the letter written to supporters


Website of Laissez-les-Vivre: http://laissezlesvivre.free.fr/
After a quick search the website's archive seems to be really excellent- I will probably be able to use the website from the US

Need to look up: le professeur Jérôme LEJEUNE. There seems to be controversy around him but I am not entirely sure what he did or said.

p.s. the bathrooms at the Marguerite Durand are super clean

Monday, November 15, 2010

A Mexican In Paris!

I am currently in Paris doing research for my dissertation. I will post a dissertation description as soon as a have a good one. At the moment, I plan on using this blog to store notes and ideas relating to my dissertation but from time to time I will probably post comments on pop culture and politics.