Hi all out there in cyberland! This is my first, official blog post ever so I really don't know what it's about or how to do it, but here it goes nonetheless.
I'm Sarah and I'm a seventh year PhD student. And yes, if that sounds like an AA introduction, I think that's because grad school and AA have a lot more in common that we all would like to admit. Anyway, I am strictly a historian. Though my research covers a wide variety of subdisciplines within that field, I am a historian through and through. That means my research is archival and pretty much lots and lots of reading (sometimes with pictures!).
My dissertation explores the relationship between eugenics, gender and Catholicism between 1900 and 1950 in Chile. Specifically, I focus on the development of public health programs as a means of rationalizing modern Chilean society into an order that still privileged men over women and championed the idea of the male head of household. This is particularly important in the context of the Popular Front movement in Chile and the creation of the welfare state, both secular and primarily liberal political achievements, that were predicated on working class understandings of gender that focused on male political identity and work. While I don't really buy that more women cared about Catholicism, the actors in my story did believe that, so my dissertation tries to dial into that. I have a specific interest in trying to show that Latin America was not a place where science (eugenic or otherwise) went to die just because of the predominantly Catholic social influence (an argument that's pretty popular among Anglo historians of science).
Looking forward to working together!
