Alejandra Vela-Martínez
Assistant Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures (Spanish)
Specializations:
20th-21st Century Mexican Cultural Studies
Transnational mass culture, archives, feminine periodicals and literature
Diasporic and border feminine literature
their reception and preservation throughout Latin American Modernity
Course idea:
Open to collaborating on a topic related to formations of identity and/or popular culture
My research critically examines the construction of symbolic value in Latin American literature and culture, with a particular focus on Mexico, through the lens of Gender, Women, and Sexualities Studies. I explore the creation of symbolic capital using two main approaches: historical research based on archival work with understudied materials, and critical readings informed by reception theory and affect theory to highlight biases in cultural consumption. My analyses question the institutionalized margins of official culture from a gendered perspective.
As a whole, my research questions the Latin American cultural field by examining how different "counter-archives," as I call them in my current book manuscript, illuminate literary and cultural history involving feminine writers and materials. I defend the need, within the Humanities, to celebrate the ways femininity has intervened in the public sphere, while rethinking the limits of what is considered Literature and Culture. This is a necessary step towards a reconceptualization of intellectual history based on feminized aesthetics that uncover numerous female and women writers, editors, and readers formerly excluded from the canon.
My interests lie at the intersection of Literary History, Women and Gender Studies, and the History of Material Culture. I challenge prevailing feminist historical perspectives that dismiss cultural products as too conservative or patriarchal, advocating for the recognition of diverse forms of feminine participation in the public sphere throughout history. This approach seeks to restore the agency of women and other feminine subjects in shaping their destinies.
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Alexandra Gold
Head Preceptor, Writing
alexandra_gold@fas.harvard.edu
Specializations:
Post—1945 American poetry and visual art
Writing / first-year composition
Popular culture
Course idea:
None specified
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Emily Fairchild
Lecturer on Sociology and Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies, Harvard
Specializations:
Micro-processes that sustain and challenge understanding of gender
Interplay among levels of analysis: institutional, interactional, individual especially as related to gendered rituals (ex: weddings), sports, and higher education
Course idea:
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Nicole Noll
Lecturer, Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Harvard
Specializations:
Embodiment of gender and other culturally- and historically-situated social categories
Gender/sex-essentialist beliefs and their implications
Social psychology, especially automatic social cognition
Course idea:
I would be interested in co-developing a course on the embodiment of gender (and/or sexuality), contributing a social psychological perspective. I would also be open to building a course that examined intersectionality in the context of social science research.
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Jocelyn Viterna
Professor, Sociology, Harvard University
Specializations:
Sociology, Reproductive Justice
Reproductive Health
Gender and Politics
Criminalization of Sexuality and Reproduction
Implicit/Explicit Gender Bias in the Judicial System
Gender-based Violence
Gender and War
Latin America
Course idea:
None specified
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Alecia McGregor
Assistant Professor, Community Health, Tufts University
Specializations:
Health inequities
Health care outcomes
Maternal health
Urban health policies
Course idea:
Non specified
Alecia McGregor earned her Ph.D. in Health Policy from Harvard University in 2014, where she received a certificate in Latin American Studies and was a National Institute of Mental Health trainee. From 2014 to 2016 she was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Center for Health and Wellbeing at Princeton University. At Princeton, she helped launch an initiative on Race, Inequality and Health Policy in the United States.
Dr. McGregor's research focuses on health inequalities and the political determinants of health. She has done work on HIV/AIDS disparities, religion and public opinion, mental health and substance abuse policy, and urban health policies; and her research draws on multiple approaches including quantitative, qualitative, comparative, and survey analyses. Her doctoral dissertation analyzed the politics of health care provision in both the United States and Brazil. Currently, she is researching the drivers and consequences of hospital closures in the U.S., and the politics of drug treatment policy in the U.S. and Brazil. Outside of work, she enjoys bicycling, tennis, and anything outdoors.
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Phyllis Thompson
Lecturer on Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Harvard University
Specializations:
Domesticity
Representations
Food
Motherhood
American studies
Course idea:
Selfies (history of self-portraits in visual culture & literature, regulation of gender therein; visual cultures of the body; representation as a site of protest)
Phyllis Thompson is a cultural historian who works on nineteenth- and twentieth-century American topics. Her book project, Domestic Pleasures: Dreams of Hope and Fulfillment in American Home Life, traces the intellectual history of the idea of pleasure in private life. It focuses on representations of gendered pleasure as they circulated in literary, prescriptive, and popular texts and images during a pair of Gilded Ages a century apart. A second project addresses the development of taste as a transatlantic phenomenon, with a particular focus on taste-makers and their evolving qualifications.
She received her doctorate in American Studies, with a graduate certificate in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, from Harvard University. She additionally holds an A.M. in History from Harvard, an M.A. in American Civilization from Brown University, and a B.A. in English Literature from Yale University. From 2013-2014 she was the Visiting Scholar in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Northeastern University.
Thompson maintains active research interests in representations of gender, race, and class; the body; the family and domesticity; childhood; the intellectual histories of love and beauty; food; DIY culture; the relationship between text and image; the history of sexuality and gender; and gender politics. Before her academic career she worked as an editor of photography books at Aperture Foundation in New York City.
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Sabra Katz-Wise
Research Scientist, Division of Adolescent/Young Adult Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital and Instructor, Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School
sabra.katz-wise@childrens.harvard.edu
Specializations:
LGBTQ health inequities
Sexual orientation and gender identity development and fluidity
Psychosocial functioning of families with transgender and/or nonbinary youth
Course idea:
None specified
Dr. Sabra L. Katz-Wise, PhD (she/her) is an Associate Professor in Adolescent/Young Adult Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, in Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and in Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. She is also Adjunct Faculty at The Fenway Institute. She is Director of the Harvard SOGIE (Sexual Orientation Gender Identity and Expression) Health Equity Research Collaborative, and she is a Senior Faculty Advisor for the Boston Children’s Office of Health Equity and Inclusion. Dr. Katz-Wise’s research uses community-engaged mixed methods to investigate sexual orientation and gender identity development and fluidity, health inequities related to sexual orientation and gender identity in adolescents and young adults, and psychosocial functioning in families with transgender and nonbinary youth. Her work has been funded by several grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Boston Children’s Aerosmith Endowment Fund and is widely published in peer-reviewed journals. In addition to research, Dr. Katz-Wise is involved with advocacy efforts to improve the workplace climate, patient care, and learning environment for LGBTQ+ individuals, including her role on the Queer Leadership Council for the Boston Children’s Rainbow Alliance and member of the Boston Children’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Council.
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Brittany Charlton
Instructor, Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital
bcharlton@mail.harvard.edu
Specializations:
- Epidemiology
- LGBTQ health
Course idea:
None specified
Dr. Brittany Charlton is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School, Boston Children’s Hospital, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health's Department of Epidemiology. She is also an Associate Epidemiologist in the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and a Lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr. Charlton's epidemiologic research primarily focuses on reproductive health. One area of her work examines the development and prevention of sexual orientation-related disparities with a focus on reproductive health topics such as HPV/cervical cancer, teen pregnancy, and family planning. A second area of her research investigates the health effects of using contraceptives. Previously, Dr. Charlton worked on Capitol Hill as well as for non-profit organizations including NARAL and the Center for Reproductive Rights. She completed a year of national service in AmeriCorps, during which she was based at New York’s LGBT Callen-Lorde Community Health Center. Dr. Charlton trained as a predoctoral fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Ob/Gyn Epidemiology Center and was a Visiting Scientist at the Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen, Denmark. She completed the Postdoctoral Fellowship in Sexual Orientation and Health Disparities Research at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Charlton holds a BA from The New School as well as an MSc and ScD from the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.