Nell's research analyzes the cultural politics of women’s care labors in America, tracing these politics through the 20th- and 21st-century United States. Her current book project devotes a chapter each to understanding four gender-racialized figures of care: the mother, the nurse, the housewife, and the maid. Examining a range of sources from the Progressive era to today—including a 1901 mothering manual; nursing memoirs from the World Wars; postfeminist 1990s television shows; Trump-era cultural texts; and the words of domestic-worker activists—it argues that the work of caring for others has been at the center of enduring American political struggle. While women of all races have been subjugated by care labors, white women’s care has also been culturally elevated. White women and men across the political spectrum take up care in ways that serve their political interests. Meanwhile Black and brown women’s care is often denigrated, except when it serves whiteness. This project makes sense of, and traces struggle over, the racialization of women’s care. It helps to bridge a gap in feminist scholarship by synthesizing care-ethics and racial-justice perspectives, arguing for a lens I call care justice, which joins concern for care, for gender equity in care labors, and for racial equity in access to well-being.

2020-2021 | American Dissertation Fellowship | American Association of University Women

2019 | Steinhaus/Zisson Research Grant | Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women, Brown University

2019 | Mary Lily Research Grant | Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, Duke University

2022 | Deans’ Faculty Fellowship (declined) | Science and Technology Studies, Brown University

2022 Dean’s Faculty Fellowship (declined) | Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women, Brown University

2019-2022 | Research Associate | Five College Women’s Studies Research Center 

2020-2021 | American Dissertation Fellowship | American Association of University Women

2015 | Journalist in Aging Fellow | Gerontological Society of America and New America Foundation

2014 | Age Boom Academy Fellow | Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center, Columbia University

 

American Studies Association

National Women's Studies Association

Investigative Reporters and Editors

Association of Health Care Journalists

In Nell Lake's courses, students practice reporting and writing for journalism. Nell's teaching emphasizes narrative techniques, clarity of voice, ethics and accuracy, and thorough reporting.