Graduate Student Colloquium with Emily Merrill (History) and Emily Vala-Haynes (Sociology)

Thursday, February 6, 2014 - 8:30am

Please join us at the Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies (GSWS) first Graduate Student Colloquium of the semester onThursday, February 6, from 12 pm to 1:30 pm in Cohen Hall 436. The colloquium will feature presentations from Emily Merrill (History) and Emily Vala-Haynes (Sociology).  Descriptions of the presentations are included below Lunch will be served, so please RSVP to smourad@asc.upenn.edu by Friday, January 31st.

 

This monthly interdisciplinary colloquium is open to graduate students working on all things women, gender, queer and sexuality studies. It allows graduate students to workshop parts of chapters, articles, essays, or practice conference papers and presentations. Please join us and participate in the discussion, and consider presenting your work at future colloquia! Many students have found this to be a friendly space to get feedback on their research. Email me if you are interested.

 

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Emily Merrill (History)

“Communion through Violence: Empire, Masculinity, and War”

 

When the tension between American colonists & British imperial authorities broke into open warfare in 1775, the British Army was famed throughout the Atlantic World as an elite fighting force, known for its ferocious violence both on and off the battlefield.  Yet the peculiar demands of the American War of Independence, in which the British sought to regain the loyalty of disaffected American colonists, meant that their usual violent tactics were often a liability rather than an asset.  Yet because violence was celebrated as the ultimate expression of military masculinity, British imperial authorities struggled to redefine proper masculine behavior in ways helpful to the continuance of the British imperial project. 

 

 

Emily Vala-Haynes (Sociology)

“An Assessment of Contraceptive Use Among the Toba of Northern Argentina in Comparison with Neighboring Indigenous Populations”

 

My dissertation focuses on fertility inequalities faced by women in Latin America, and this second chapter investigates the uptake in contraceptive use among indigenous Toba women in Northwest Argentina. These data, a portion of which were collected by me during the summer of 2011, include women 15 to 65 living in the peri-urban community of NamQom. This community is characterized by high fertility, high infant morbidity and mortality, and serves as a case study of a marginalized group in one of the wealthiest countries in South America. In addition, I analyze data from Bolivia and Paraguay for the purposes of comparison between the Toba and other indigenous women in South America. This chapter provides an opportunity to examine the effectiveness of specific family planning policies aimed at women who have increased odds of high fertility and limited access to contraception.