Barbara Gurr

Associate Professor-in-Residence

Department of Social and Critical Inquiry

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Biography

Barbara Gurr received her BA in English and her BA in Women’s Studies from the University of Connecticut; her MS in English Education and her MA in Women’s Studies from Southern Connecticut State University, where she also earned her secondary education certifications in English and Social Studies; and her MA and PhD in Sociology from the University of Connecticut.

Her first book,Reproductive Justice: the Politics of Healthcare for Native American Women, was the first book-length consideration of Native women’s reproductive healthcare; her second book,Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Post-Apocalyptic TV and Film, of which she is the editor and a contributor, presents a multi-disciplinary examination of post-apocalyptic meaning-making in popular culture.

She is the winner of numerous teaching and research awards at both the local and national level.

Education

Ph.D., University of Connecticut

Areas of Specialty

• Native America
• Reproductive Justice
• Speculative Fiction
• Feminist, Queer, and Critical Race Theories
• Human Rights

Current Research Interests

Barbara Gurr’s current research projects include: interrogating the applicability of human and cultural rights at Inyan Woslal Han (Standing Rock Reservation); speculative fiction and the American body; and an edited collection on feminist research methods.

Selected Publications

Books

Gurr, Barbara. Ed. 2015. Race, Gender and Sexuality in Post-Apocalyptic TV and Film.
New York. Palgrave MacMillan.

Gurr, Barbara. 2014. Reproductive Justice: the Politics of Healthcare for Native American Women. New Brunswick. Rutgers University Press.

Scholarly Articles

Gurr, Barbara. 2014. “Ten Years On: Making Relatives and Making Meaning in the Borderlands”
Critical Sociology 40(1): 151-168.

Gurr, Barbara. 2012. “The Failures and Possibilities of a Human Rights Approach to Secure Native American Women’s Reproductive Justice” Societies Without Borders 1(7): 1-28.

Gurr, Barbara. 2011. “Complex Intersections: Reproductive Justice and Native American Women” Sociology Compass 5(8): 721-735.        

Gurr, Barbara. 2011. “Mothering in the Borderlands: The Policing of Native American Women’s Reproductive Healthcare” The International Journal of Sociology of the Family 31(1): 69-84.

Book Chapters

Gurr, Barbara. 2015. “Masculinity, Race, and the (Re?)Imagined American Frontier” pp.  31-44   in Barbara Gurr, ed. Race, Gender and Sexuality in Post-Apocalyptic TV and Film. New York. Palgrave MacMillan.

Gurr, Barbara. 2014. “Queer Mothering or Mothering Queerly?  The Public Work of  Transgender Families” pp. 113-127 in Margaret Gibson, ed. Queering Maternity & Motherhood: Narrative and Theoretical Perspectives on Queer Conception, Birth and Parenting. Toronto. Demeter Press.

Naples, Nancy A. and Barbara Gurr. 2013. “Feminist Empiricism and Standpoint  Theory Approaches to Understanding the Social World” pp. 14-41 in Sharlene Hesse Biber,  ed. Feminist Research Practice: A Primer, 2^nd Edition. Thousand Oaks. Sage Publications.

Gurr, Barbara.  2013. “The Responsibilities of Relationship: Feminist Praxis in Sociology” pp.    153-157 in Shelley White, Kathleen Korgen, and Jonathon White, eds. Sociologists in Action: Sociology, Social Change and Social Justice, 2^nd edition. Los Angeles. Pine Forge/Sage.

Gurr, Barbara. 2011. “We Are a People in This World: Native Americans and Human Rights Discourse” pp. 185-198 in William Armaline, Davita Glasberg, Bandana Purkayastha, eds.  In Our Own Backyard: Injustice and Resistance in the United States.  Philadelphia. University of Pennsylvania Press.