Brenna McCaffrey

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

Office Hours:

Spring 2025
Wed/Fri 2:00-3:30 pm
 

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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. “The Woman is the Active Agent: General Practitioners and the Agentive Displacement of Abortion in Ireland” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 38(2): 193-207.

    2024. “Aiding, Abetting, & America’s Bitter Abortion Pill”. L’Homme: European Journal of Feminist History, 35(2): 111 – 116.

    2023. “Technologies of Protest in Irish Feminism.” Feminist Anthropology 4(1): 115-131.

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

    2022. “Op-Ed: We Should Talk More About the Abortion Pill.” 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 is looking for research assistants for Fall 2025 - Spring 2026 who want to work on her research project "Reproductive Justice and Interstate Solidarity in Post-Roe New York State," which examines how access to reproductive healthcare and abortion has changed in NY after Roe v. Wade was overturned. Student research assistants earn credit working on interview transcription, qualitative coding, background research, scholarly literature review, and other tasks as needed. Students should have taken ANTH319 (Politics of Reproduction) or have previous exposure to sexual and reproductive health topics through another course.