U.S. professor speaks about women’s health movement at UPEI May 17
As part of the 2008 Dr. Frank MacKinnon Lecture Series, Dr. Wendy Kline, associate professor of history at the University of Cincinnati, will give a talk called 'Surveying the Women's Health Movement: Technology, Research and Reading Our Bodies, Ourselves' at the University of Prince Edward Island on Saturday, May 17, at 4 p.m.
The Dr. Frank MacKinnon Lecture will take place in the K.C. Irving (KCI) Building's lecture theatre (Room 104) at UPEI in conjunction with a 'Women, History and Technology' conference organized by the Canadian Committee on Women's History (Atlantic Region) on May 16 and 17. Members of the audience are invited to meet Kline at a reception in the KCI foyer following her presentation.
Kline will speak about the impact that the book, Our Bodies, Ourselves, has had on women's knowledge about and attitudes toward their bodies. From its first publication as a stapled newsprint booklet in 1970 to its latest Russian re-edition in 2007, Our Bodies, Ourselves, a book about women's health and sexuality, has grown in popularity and influence throughout North America and the world. It is produced by Our Bodies Ourselves, a non-profit organization formerly known as the Boston Women's Health Book Collective.
Kline's lecture is part of her second book project entitled Taking Their Bodies Back: A History of the Women's Health Movement. She will talk about how web-based research tools can be used in innovative ways to evaluate the social impact of Our Bodies, Ourselves.
With assistance from the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University (2001), she created a web-based research survey that allowed her to reach a diverse group of respondents. Using the online survey, she is studying the social and cultural factors that led to the first publication of Our Bodies, Ourselves. Survey participants tell how the book, and its subsequent editions, influenced their perceptions of women's health and wellness.
Kline received her PhD from the University of California-Davis in 1998. The winner of many awards and research grants, she is an expert in the history of women's health, medicine and popular culture in the 20th century. She is the author of Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom (University of California Press, 2001).
The Dr. Frank MacKinnon Lecture Series is sponsored by the Confederation Centre of the Arts and the University of Prince Edward Island. Named in honour of the late Dr. Frank MacKinnon, a leader in the Island's education system and in the establishment of the Confederation Centre, the series features leading personalities and focuses on issues of national interest in Canada such as public policy, the arts, and sciences and humanities.
