Research Description

I have three research areas.

1. I am interested in women’s negotiation of place and use of transportation. My current SSHRC-funded research is called "Making a Scene: A Cultural Geography of Lesbian Canada, 1964-1990." It examines the historical struggles undertaken by lesbians in Canada to create community by building up local, regional, and national networks of autonomous lesbian spaces in the face of homophobia, misogyny, institutional repression, and violence. This work also deals with the internal dynamics of lesbian community as members attempted to unlearn lessons of dehumanization and embrace diversity.

2. I research the history of transportation, mobility, and gender. My book "Women in British Imperial Airspace, 1922-1937" (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2008) won the Canadian Women's Studies Association Annual Book Prize, 2010.

3. I collaborate with Dr. Janice Dodd, Head, Department of Physiology, in examining the feminist utopian possibilities of science fiction.

Teaching Description

My teaching encourages students to understand the need to develop theoretical frameworks to explain how complex oppression functions, is justified, and to consider their own agency in this process.

I teach the following courses in Women's and Gender Studies:

WOMN 1500 Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies in the Humanities

WOMN 2000 Feminist Thought

WOMN 2600 Sex, Gender, Space and Place

WOMN 3550 Feminist Community Organizing: Theories & Practices

WOMN 3620 Masculinities