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Rebecca Upton

Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology

Rebecca L. UptonRebecca L. Upton researches and writes on infertility and HIV/AIDS in northern Botswana, on the construction of work and family among contemporary American families and on the intersections of qualitative and quantitative methodologies in her work in Africa and the U.S. 

She teaches courses at DePauw that are regularly cross-listed in Women’s Studies, including Gender & Anthropology and Culture, Medicine & Health: an Introduction to Medical Anthropology. While a Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Faculty member in 2009 - 2010 she carried this emphasis on gender and health to courses at the University of Botswana and the Centre for the Study of HIV and AIDS in Gaborone. In between teaching and research she is currently pursuing an MPH degree at Emory University and at work on a book for Oxford University Press on gender and the failure of public health in Botswana. 

Select publications include: 

“Fat Eggs: Gender and Fertility as Important Factors in HIV/AIDS Prevention in Botswana”, Gender & Development. Vol 18, issue 3, November 2010, pages 515-524. 

“Promising the Permanent Condom: Cautionary Notes on Infertility and Male Circumcision in an Era of HIV and AIDS”, Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies Vol. 24 No. 1. 2010, pages 101-117.

“Using Fertility, Useful Infertility” in The End of Children, University of British Columbia Press, 2011. 

“Pedagogy of the Obsessed: Infertility, IVF and How the Search for Maternity Affects Teaching, Learning and a Feminist Self” in Maternal Pedagogies, Byrd and Green eds., 2011.