Law professor, dancer, and Spelman alumna Khiara M. Bridges is in a league of her own

ATLANTA, Georgia  -  Referred to as the “Balletic Legal Scholar” in the Boston University article “Secret Lives,” Spelman College alumna Khiara M. Bridges can definitely be considered the quintessential Renaissance woman. After graduating in three years from Spelman as valedictorian, she went on to earn a Columbia Law School J.D. and a Ph.D., with distinction, in anthropology from Columbia University.

The Miami, Florida native currently holds dual appointments as associate professor of law and associate professor of anthropology at Boston University. She speaks fluent Spanish, basic Arabic, is a classically trained, professional ballet dancer, and the author of the book, “Reproducing Race: An Ethnography of Pregnancy as a Site of Racialization.”

Read how she successfully merges her passion for teaching and her love of dance http://www.bu.edu/bostonia/summer12/secret/

Book Description: “Reproducing Race: An Ethnography of Pregnancy as a Site of Racialization.” Publication Date: March 18, 2011
Reproducing Race, an ethnography of pregnancy and birth at a large New York City public hospital, explores the role of race in the medical setting. Khiara M. Bridges investigates how race--commonly seen as biological in the medical world--is socially constructed among women dependent on the public healthcare system for prenatal care and childbirth. Bridges argues that race carries powerful material consequences for these women even when it is not explicitly named, showing how they are marginalized by the practices and assumptions of the clinic staff. Deftly weaving ethnographic evidence into broader discussions of Medicaid and racial disparities in infant and maternal mortality, Bridges shines new light on the politics of healthcare for the poor, demonstrating how the "medicalization" of social problems reproduces racial stereotypes and governs the bodies of poor women of color.