Dr. Rebecca Godderis

Assistant Professor, Health Studies and Contemporary Studies

Contact Information

Email: rgodderis@wlu.ca
Phone: 519.756.8228 ext.5933

Office Location: RCE 255
Office Hours: Fridays 12:30-2:00pm

Biography

I am excited to be a member of the vibrant, interdisciplinary community of Laurier Brantford.  Prior to starting my position at Laurier, I lived in Western Canada.  I was raised in Calgary and moved to Vancouver to start my undergraduate education at Simon Fraser University.  I stayed in Vancouver for ten years, completing two degrees and working with a research unit at the University of British Columbia before moving back to Calgary to undertake my PhD. 

Academic Background

Ph.D., University of Calgary, Sociology, 2005-2009
M.A., Simon Fraser University, Criminology, 2000-2002
B.A., Simon Fraser University, Criminology and Psychology, 1995-2000

Teaching 2012-2013

Fall 2012
CT370 - Gender Theories and Culture
HS250 - Conceptualizing Medicalization: Midwifery and the Health Care System

Winter 2013
HS344 - Health and Gender
HS411- Critical Perspectives on Health and Human Sexuality

Research and Teaching Interests

I am interested in the intersections between gender, sexuality, well-being, health and medicine.  To date, the majority of my research focuses on how norms and expectations about gender and sexuality are produced and reproduced through medical and health-based knowledge.  Previously my work focused on how psychiatric knowledge about postpartum depression was created.  This work has expanded to include a number of new avenues of research including: a community-based research initiative that looks at well-being during the transition to parenthood and a critical examination of government-based information about alcohol consumption during pregnancy.

I am also currently a member of a collaborative research project that is exploring the HPV vaccine and decision-making among young adults, and have completed research on the use of theatre to explore the ethical dimensions of pandemic planning and response with Dr. Kate Rossiter.   

Selected Publications

Godderis, Rebecca. 2013.  A tricky object to classify: Evidence, postpartum depression and the DSM-IV. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 49(2), 123-141.

Godderis, Rebecca and Rossiter, Kate. 2013. 'If you have a soul, you will volunteer at once': Gendered expectations of duty to care during pandemics. Sociology of Health and Illness, 35(2), 304-308.

Godderis, Rebecca. 2011.  Iterative generation of diagnostic categories through production and practice: The case of postpartum depression. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 35(4), 484-500.

Godderis, Rebecca. 2011. From talk to action: Mapping the diagnostic process in psychiatry. In PJ McGann, David J. Hutson (eds), Sociology of Diagnosis, pp. 133-152. Cambridge, MA: Emerald Publishing Group Ltd.

Rossiter, Kate and Godderis, Rebecca. 2011. Finding the necessary distance: Theorizing ethnographic research-based theatre. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 40(6), 648-677. 

Sears, Camilla and Godderis, Rebecca. 2011. Roar like a tiger on TV? Constructions of women and childbirth in reality TV.  Feminist Media Studies, 11(2), 181-195.

Godderis, Rebecca. 2010. Precarious beginnings: Gendered risk discourses in psychiatric research literature about postpartum depression. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, 14(5), 451-466.


Recent Conference Papers

Godderis, Rebecca and Stephenson, Zipparah. June 2013 (forthcoming). Preventing tragedy: Constructions of risk and responsibility in government documents about alcohol consumption during pregnancy. Canadian Sociological Associaiton in Victoria, British Columbia.

Godderis, Rebecca. May 2011. Grabbing the media spotlight: Stories of postpartum depression during the 1980s and 1990s. Qualitatives Annual Conference in Brantford, Ontario. 

Godderis, Rebecca and Rossiter, Kate. October 2010. Waiting for the pandemic: Theatre, embodiment and knowledge generation. Qualitative Health Research Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Godderis, Rebecca. October 2009. Difficult decisions: Officially classifying postpartum depression in the DSM.  Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) in Washington, D.C.

Godderis, Rebecca. June 2008. Risky moms: Psychiatric discourse about postpartum depression.  Madness, Citizenship and Social Justice: A Human Rights Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia.