Background

Wendy Gonaver is a Ph.D. candidate specializing in black studies, women's history, and the history of medicine. Her dissertation, "The Peculiar Institution: Gender, Race, and Religion in the Making of Modern Psychiatry", analyzes how definitions of mental health have been constructed, experienced, and contested by patients and caregivers. She has taught "From Possession to Prozac: Mental Illness in North America",  Introduction to Women's Studies, and "Body and Soul: African American Cultural Production, 1865-present."