Why the History of Medicine Matters in Birthing Justice

Deirdre Cooper Owens is a historian of medicine working at the intersection of science, race, and gender. She is the Charles and Linda Wilson Professor in the History of Medicine and director of the Humanities in Medicine program at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, as well as a distinguished lecturer for the Organization of American Historians (OAH).

Cooper Owens also serves as director of the Program in African American History at the Library Company of Philadelphia, the oldest cultural institution in the United States. Her first book, Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology (University of Georgia Press, 2017) won the 2018 Darlene Clark Hine Book Award in African American women’s and gender history.

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Cooper Owens’s Lunchtime Lecture is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of the Institute’s Innate: How Science Invented the Myth of Race project.
 

About the Series

Our virtual Lunchtime Lecture Series takes a rigorous and entertaining approach to exploring topics for scholars and anyone interested in stories about the history of science, technology, and medicine. The talks help expand perceptions of the nature of science and how it’s done.