Hi there and welcome to the Reproductive Technologies podcast! I am an assistant professor in the Department of History and Sociology here at the University of British Columbia Okanagan (UBCO). Before coming to Kelowna, I held postdoctoral positions at the University of Chicago and University of Cambridge, and was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota.
I’m an historian of medicine, science, and technology with specialization in early modern France in both European and global contexts. My current research focuses on women’s role in the formation of scientific and medical knowledge—as experimentalists, inventors, artisans, and translators. I engage with archival and museum sources, including manuscripts, printed texts, drawings, engravings, and objects. My themes of interest include: reproductive technologies and the history of midwifery; the visual culture of science and medicine; medical techniques and technologies; race, gender, and the body.
I am currently completing two book projects. The first, Women and Anatomy in Enlightenment France, shows that while the eighteenth century was not an age of ‘breakthroughs’ in human anatomy, it was a dynamic time of disciplinary ferment that opened up doors to new practitioners and practices. My second book project, Delivering the Enlightenment, uses the history of technologies to tell a new story about the transition from female-led midwifery to male-dominated obstetrics in the French Atlantic World.
When I am not recording podcasts or doing research, you will find me teaching undergraduate courses on a variety of topics, including The History of Pandemics; The Scientific Revolution; Motherhood and Reproduction; and the History of Gender, Race, and Science in the Atlantic World. I currently supervise and serve on several graduate student committees in UBCO’s Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies program.
This podcast project is part of my Insight Development Grant generously funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada. A big thank you to my wonderful collaborator and Graduate Research Assistant, Stephanie Awotwi-Pratt, for making this project possible. Thanks for tuning in hope.
We hope you enjoy the episodes!