Gail H. Landsman

Office: Arts & Sciences Building, Room 246
Ph: (518) 442-4705
E-mail: landsman@albany.edu

Interests: Cultural anthropology, gender, reproduction, feminist theory, disability studies, social movements, American culture, Iroquois.

Curriculum Vitae

Research Statement

My past research centered on the politics of representation in social movements including Iroquois political activism, the woman suffrage movement, and efforts to pass family and medical leave legislation. The latter research led me to explore issues of nurturance and the construction of motherhood in contemporary American culture.

I am currently carrying out a long-term research project at the sometimes discordant intersection of feminist and disability studies. In a society in which new reproductive technologies and the widespread availability of prenatal testing are leading us to conceptualize pregnancy and motherhood in new ways, American women experience a cultural mandate to produce perfect children. Motherhood is increasingly understood in terms of choice, but who chooses a disabled child? My study examines the experiences of mothers of infants and young children with disabilities to determine the impact of mothering disabled children on definitions of personhood, concepts of the body, and the meaning of motherhood. I am also concerned with applied issues such as programs of early intervention, and communication between physicians/medical staff and parents. I anticipate continuing to conduct research in the areas of reproduction and disability with a focus on issues of parental advocacy for disability rights, inclusion, and changing concepts of physical therapy. In addition, a new project will examine the experiences of parents of children who have died in a hospital pediatric intensive care unit.

 
Select Publications Since 2000

Articles and Book Chapters

In press:
What Evidence? Whose Evidence?: Physical Therapy in New York State’s Clinical Practice Guideline and in the Lives of Parents of Disabled Children. Social Science and Medicine

Landsman, Gail and Van Riper, Marcia. Incorporating Disabled Children in Family Life. Chapter in Optimizing Care for Children with Special Health Care Needs, Elisa Sobo, K. Dennis and P.S. Kurtin (eds). Baltimore: Brookes Publishing.

Theory, Anthropology, and Research in Iroquois Studies. Histories of Anthropology Annual, 2.

2005
Mothers and Models of Disability. Journal of Medical Humanities 26(2/3): 121-139.

2004
‘Too Bad You Got a Lemon’: Peter Singer, Mothers of Children with Disabilities, and the Critique of Consumer Culture. In Consuming Motherhood. Janelle Taylor, Danielle Wozniak and Linda Layne (eds). Pp. 100-121. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press

2003
Emplotting children’s lives: developmental delay vs. disability. Social Science and Medicine 56(9): 1947-1960

2000
Real” Motherhood, Class, and Children with Disabilities. In Technologies and Ideologies of Motherhood. Helena Ragone and Frances Winddance Twine (eds). Routledge, Inc.