Claire Wendland, MD, PhD to usher in this year's Culpeper Seminar Series

This year's Culpeper Seminar Series will begin Tuesday, October 7 from 3:30 - 5:00 pm at Laurel Heights campus in Conference Room 474. Dr. Claire Wendland, Associate Professor in the Departments of Anthropology, Obstetrics & Gynecology, and Medical History and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will present some of her recent research and then lead a short Q&A session. A short description of Dr. Wendland's seminar follows: “Building Stories from Bodies: Narratives of Maternal Death in Malawi” In Malawi, where childbirth is evidently risky and maternal death has historically been politically contentious, expert narratives about maternal mortality proliferate. This talk explores the uncertainties that contribute to these divergent narratives and the struggles over legitimacy in which they are wielded. I close by suggesting why these stories matter—for anthropological theory, and for the health of childbearing women.