Brenna McCaffrey

Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Bailey Hall 107
585-245-5818
bmccaffrey@geneseo.edu
she/her

Office Hours:

Fall 2025
Mondays 2:30pm- 4:30pm

Wednesdays 3:30pm-5:00pm
 

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Brenna McCaffrey

Research Interests

Dr. McCaffrey is a cultural and medical anthropologist whose research explores the interaction of medicine, activism, and gender in Europe and the United States.

Curriculum Vitae

Education

  • PhD Anthropology, The Graduate Center, CUNY

    Advanced Certificate in Public Health, CUNY School of Public Health

    BA Anthropology and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, SUNY New Paltz

Selected Publications

  • 2025. Pills & Protest: Abortion Access in Ireland. Bloomsbury Academic Press.

    2024. 鈥淭he Woman is the Active Agent: General Practitioners and the Agentive Displacement of Abortion in Ireland鈥 Medical Anthropology Quarterly 38(2): 193-207.

    2024. 鈥淎iding, Abetting, & America鈥檚 Bitter Abortion Pill鈥. L鈥橦omme: European Journal of Feminist History, 35(2): 111 鈥 116.

    2023. 鈥淭echnologies of Protest in Irish Feminism.鈥 Feminist Anthropology 4(1): 115-131.

    Williamson, McCaffrey, Premkumar, Mishtal, Cogburn, Howes-Mishel, and Lowe. 2022. 鈥淐AR (Council on Anthropology and Reproduction) Statement on the Reversal of Roe v. Wade鈥. Rapid Response Series, Medical Anthropology Quarterly.

    2022. 鈥淥p-Ed: We Should Talk More About the Abortion Pill.鈥 SAPIENS, May 12.

Classes

  • ANTH 101: Exploration of Human Diversity

    This course will introduce basic concepts and methods of anthropology. The four sub-disciplines of anthropology will contribute to an understanding of humans as biological and cultural beings. The focus of the course is to examine the diversity of human cultures, with a primary focus on the non-Western world.

  • ANTH 302: Medical Anthropology

    This course explores the cultural, social, economic, political, and environmental factors that affect health and well- being-as well as the practice of healing and medicine-across cultures. We will use theories and methods from critical medical anthropology to examine the social determinants of health and health inequality.

  • ANTH 319: Politics of Reproduction

    The biological and social reproduction of the human species is a complex process that engages all major institutions of society: family, religion, morality, health, economy, and government. Using cross-cultural and social historical materials, this course will examine cases in which control over reproduction is contested. We will focus on the various ways anthropologists have theorized reproduction, as well as draw from research across the social sciences. Key topics will include: the medicalization of reproduction, reproductive technologies, ideas of "the family," activism, eugenics, reproductive justice, and queer family formation. Class materials will explore these topics in a global perspective; students will also select a topic of their choice in a non-US cultural context to examine throughout the semester's assignments.

Student Research Opportunities

Dr. McCaffrey has two on-going research projects related to reproductive politics, health, and gender, that interested students can become involved in: 

  • Reproductive Justice and Interstate Solidarity in Post-Dobbs New York State
  • Gender Politics and Reproductive Futurity in the Face of Demographic Decline

Student research assistants on these projects work on background research, literature reviews, research design, interviews, qualitative coding through Atlas.TI software, data analysis, and written and oral presentations. Students have opportunities to author and present research at 好色先生, as well as at regional and national conferences. Preference for students who can commit to at least two semesters of involvement. The research team generally meets on Monday or Wednesday afternoons. Email Dr. McCaffrey or stop by her office hours for more information!