Lecture with Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens
This past April, the Department of Black Studies, along with the Department of Health Sciences and the School of Nursing and Health Sciences, hosted their third lecture of the 2023-2024 Guest Speaker Series, welcoming Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens of the University of Connecticut to Providence College campus. Dr. Cooper Owens is a popular public speaker, writer, and reproductive justice advocate. She is also an Organization of American Historians’ (OAH) Distinguished Lecturer, a past American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Fellow and has won several prestigious honors and awards for her scholarly and advocacy work in history and reproductive and birthing justice.
Dr. Cooper Owens’ lecture was titled, “Examining Slavery, the Archives of the Womb & the Birth of American Gynecology.” The lecture provided context for how and why physicians denied Black women their full humanity yet valued them as “medical superbodies” highly suited for experimentation. Thank you to all the students, faculty, and staff who attended!
If you are interested in learning more about Dr. Cooper Owens’ work, you can check out her recently-published book, Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology.
