Research and Teaching

Since the publication in 2000 of my second book, Science, Women and Revolution in Russia, I have been engaged in several on-going research projects. I am working on a cross-cultural study of sexuality and fertility control, tentatively titled Sex and Herbs and Birth Control. The monograph is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather is a sampling of ways in which changing ideas about gender, sexuality and reproduction have shaped women’s lives. For example, one chapter, “The Dead Woman on the Table,” examines how the (overwhelmingly male) practitioners of the emerging medical specialties of gynecology and forensic pathology created a discourse about illegally induced abortion and its supposedly inevitable consequences. Another chapter, however, describes how women in the United States and Europe still maintained access to reasonably safe abortion for many decades after male medical professionals had succeeded in their criminalization efforts.

In addition to Sex and Herbs and Birth Control, I am continuing my research on cross-cultural comparisons of women in science, technology and medicine. My most recent article on the subject, “Gender and Science Where Science Is on the Margins” will appear shortly in the Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society. I am also working in the area of gender and archaeology. My essay “Male Bonding Around the Campfire: Constructing Myths of Hohokam Militarism” will soon be published in Men and Masculinities. Finally, I have been writing a series of short pieces on women’s lives and health in territorial Arizona. One essay, “Divorce Arizona Style,” is scheduled to appear in Arizona Highways. Several others can be accessed on the website of the Sharlot Hall Museum Archives at www.sharlot.org/archives/dayspast/show/pl.

My teaching interests include women and health, gender and science, and feminist theory. I routinely teach the introductory course and Women as Healers. I have also taught or shall soon teach Women and Sexuality, Gender and Development and Contemporary Feminist Theory. In all of my courses, I emphasize discussion, individual and group projects, and writing. Moreover, my perspectives are emphatically historical and cross-cultural, and investigate the intersection of gender with other variables such as class, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, etc.

Last but not least— I am the co-founder and director of a small non-profit foundation for the encouragement of women and girls in science, technology and medicine in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Named after the Russian mathematician and feminist Sofia Kovalevskaia (1850-1891), the Kovalevskaia Fund sponsors prizes, awards, scholarships and occasional conferences and other activities, and publishes a newsletter in English and Spanish.