The Department of Gender & Women’s Studies is so pleased to have Dr. Molly Henderson joining us as a Visiting Assistant Professor! To help you get to know her, we asked her some questions. Please read below to learn about Dr. Henderson!
Name:
Dr. Molly M. Henderson
Title:
Visiting Assistant Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies
Hometown:
I was born in Boston, Massachusetts and raised in the suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland.
Educational/professional background:
I have a Bachelor’s degree in American Studies and Urban Studies from Northwestern University and a PhD in American Studies from George Washington University. My education has always been very interdisciplinary so I’m delighted to keep that tradition going here in Gender & Women’s Studies.
What is your field of research, and how did you get into it?
I study the role of reproductive health and politics in shaping the environmental history of the late 20th century United States. I spent my early years of graduate school studying the social, cultural, and political transformations of the 1970s, focusing on how diverse social movements leveraged claims to the family and its future. While in graduate school, I was also getting involved in environmental organizing in Washington, D.C., and at the same time, from the Sunrise Movement and Extinction Rebellion to Fridays for the Future, youth activists called for government accountability in the name of children inheriting a rapidly warming planet. From there, I started to see some throughlines and wanted to understand the longer history. Once I started diving into environmental history, bringing along my ongoing interests in reproduction, feminism, and the family, I became interested in tracing how reproduction and children’s futures came to be critical sites of concern and intervention within environmental politics.
What attracted you to UW-Madison?
There are so many things that appeal to me about UW-Madison and, especially, the Gender & Women’s Studies department. I feel particularly lucky to be working in a department with a strong and longstanding emphasis on studying health and activism from all angles. It is an amazing thing to teach future nurses, doctors, public health researchers, ecologists, lawyers, teachers, writers, artists, and whatever else they dream up about environmental health and reproduction, and I take the responsibility very seriously. I know we all say this but it really is true that I learn so much from my students, their experiences, and how they see the world.
What was your first visit to campus like?
The first day I visited campus it was overcast and 60 degrees in August, but the second time the sun was shining and the birds were chirping and it felt a bit like I’d walked onto a movie set of a college campus.
Favorite place on campus?
My favorites so far are the Wisconsin Historical Society and the Social Work Library. My students from Gender & Environmental Politics and I visited the Allen Centennial Garden for a field trip last week and I can’t believe we have access to such a serene space to stop in between classes. I also really enjoy spending time in the Gender & Women’s Studies department and getting to chat with colleagues whose work I so admire.
Do you feel your work relates in any way to the Wisconsin Idea?
Absolutely! I take a lot of inspiration from the idea that the work we do here on campus should contribute to the public good in Wisconsin and beyond. The classes I teach touch on topics with a lot of contemporary political resonance—we discuss everything from environmental justice organizing, feminist theories of health, and movements for reproductive freedom to how we care for ourselves and one another and imagine just climate futures. I view these topics and their histories as above all a set of tools and resources for students to draw on as they engage with the world now and in the future.
What are your hobbies or other interests:
I love cooking, reading groups, clothing swaps, traveling, seeing basically all new movie releases, talking on the phone with friends, and walking my dog.