About
Gwen D?Arcangelis is associate professor in Gender Studies at Skidmore College. Her areas of teaching and research include gender, race, and science; feminist science fiction; disease and empire; and feminist and anti-imperial praxis. She has published on the construction of white scientific masculinity in U.S. national security discourse, gendered Orientalism in the U.S. news media during the 2003 SARS disease scare, and nurse activism during the War on Terror.
Current Work
Dr. D’Arcangelis’s newly released book, Bio-Imperialism: Disease, Terror, and the Construction of National Fragility (Rutgers University Press, 2020), critiques an understudied dimension of the war on terror—U.S. focus on bioterror and germ threats. The book examines the post-9/11 mobilization of bioscience and public health fields to this effort, alongside narratives of Arab/Muslim terror, U.S. vulnerability, white femininity, techno-scientific progress, and pandemic preparedness. The book argues that the U.S. significantly advanced its global control over biological, medical, and health resources during the war on terror. The book is available for pre-order on the Rutgers University press website:
https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/bio-imperialism/9781978814783 Dr. D’Arcangelis is currently conducting a study, “Chinese Medicine & Healing Justice,” focusing on Chinese Medicine in the U.S. as an important site for promoting community wellness among people of color and other marginalized communities. The study primarily relies on interviews with women of color and community-based practitioners, and explores how they come to Chinese Medicine (CM) as their primary mode of healing, what role they view CM as playing in community health and social justice, and how they navigate the challenges of cultural translation.
Research Area Keyword(s)
disease, empire, gender, race, Science