For a video recording of this talk visit this page.
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Date: February 21, 2020
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:30pm
Location: Sutardja Dai Hall, Banatao Auditorium, UC Berkeley
About the Talk:
Talk title: "What Genealogies Reveal: Slavery, Race, and American Gynecology"
In her talk, historian Deirdre Cooper Owens reveals the United States' genealogical origins regarding not only modern gynecology but also the history of reproductive medicine. She explains how the institution of American slavery was directly linked to the creation of reproductive medicine in the U.S. Dr. Cooper Owens provides context for how and why physicians denied black women their full humanity, yet valued them as “medical superbodies” highly suited for experimentation. Engaging with 19th-century ideas about so-called racial difference, Dr. Cooper Owens sheds light on the contemporary legacy of medical racism.
About the Speaker:
Deirdre Cooper Owens, an award-winning historian and popular public speaker, is an Associate Professor of History at Queens College, CUNY and the Director of the Program in African American History at the Library Company of Philadelphia, the country's oldest cultural institution. Dr. Cooper Owens believes that the job of the historian is to break the chains of ignorance one lecture, one book, one lesson plan at a time.
As a teacher and public speaker, Cooper Owens knows that staying immersed in the worlds that cultivated her growing interest in history is what keeps her not only grounded but also committed to teaching community-based history. From sitting on the front porch with her granddaddy in Kingstree, SC while he regaled her with ghost stories about the enslaved in his Gullah/Geechee inflected lilt to listening to working-class black men and women lovingly play the dozens with each other in her childhood hometown of Anacostia, SE in Washington, DC, Dr. Cooper Owens learned that stories are what draw people into wanting to know about the past.
Cooper Owens is a proud graduate of two historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), the all-women's Bennett College and Clark Atlanta University. She earned her Ph.D. in history at UCLA and served as a postdoctoral fellow at UVA. In Fall 2019, she will join the University of Nebraska, Lincoln’s Department of History as the inaugural Linda & Charles Wilson Professor in the History of Medicine and the Director of the Humanities in Medicine Program. She will be one of two Black women in the United States leading a health humanities program. As one of the country's most "acclaimed experts in U.S. history," according to Time Magazine, Cooper Owens is steadily working towards making history more accessible and inspiring for all.
Note: This event is wheelchair accessible. To request ASL/captioning, or other accessibility services contact takiyah.franklin@berkeley.edu. Requests made within three weeks of the event may be difficult to arrange depending on the availability of the of service provider.
Kindly refrain from wearing scented products.
