Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Women's and Gender Studies; Director, Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG). Courtesy appointments in Sociology, Political Science, and Health Management and Policy.
About
Anna Kirkland, J.D., Ph.D., is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and holds courtesy appointments in Sociology, Political Science, and Health Management and Policy and Director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG). She served as IRWG’s Associate Director from 2014 to 2017. She is a member of Michigan’s Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation and served as a committee member for the National Academies of Science, Medicine, and Engineering panel that produced Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (National Academies Press, June 2018).
Prof. Kirkland is a sociolegal scholar working on the relationships between health, law, and rights in the contemporary U.S. Her most recent work is about the implementation and politics of Section 1557, the non-discrimination clause of the Affordable Care Act, with a focus on transgender healthcare rights and insurance coverage and access (funded by the National Science Foundation). She is writing a book about civil rights in healthcare contexts in the contemporary U.S.
Prof. Kirkland is the author of Vaccine Court: The Law and Politics of Injury (New York University Press, 2016), Fat Rights: Dilemmas of Difference and Personhood (New York University Press, 2008), co-editor with Jonathan Metzl (Vanderbilt University) of Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality (New York University Press, 2010), and co-editor with Prof. Marie-Andree Jacob from Keele University, UK of Research Handbook on Sociolegal Studies of Medicine and Health (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020). She was an organizer of a National Science Foundation workshop, “Bridging Law and Society and Science and Technology Studies,” (May 2018) at Drexel University in Philadelphia with Professors Kelly Joyce (Drexel University Center for Science, Technology, and Society and Sociology) and Rose Corrigan (Drexel University Department of Politics and School of Law).
Prof. Kirkland has served as Director of Graduate Studies (2019) and Director of Undergraduate Studies (2011-2013) for the department of Women’s and Gender Studies as well as Director (2017-2018) and Undergraduate Director (2014-2016) of the Science, Technology, and Society Program. She teaches courses on gender and the law and health policy.
Selected Publications:
“Civil Rights as Patient Experience: How Healthcare Organizations Handle Complaints,” with Mikell Hyman, Law and Society Review, Vol. 55 No. 2 (2021): 223-375.
Perspective, “Health Coverage and Care for Transgender People — Threats and Opportunities,” with Daphna Stroumsa, New England Journal of Medicine, December 12, 2020. doi: 10.1056/NEJMp2032453
“The Public’s Role in COVID-19 Vaccination: Human-centered Recommendations to Enhance Pandemic Vaccine Awareness, Access, and Acceptance in the United States,” with Monica Schoch-Spana, Emily Brunson, Rex Long, Alexandra Ruth, Sanjana Ravi, Marc Trotochaud, Luciana Borio, Janesse Brewer, Joseph Buccina, Nancy Connell, Laura Lee Hall, Nancy Kass, Lisa Koonin, Heidi Larson, Brooke Fisher Lu, Saad B. Omer, Walter A. Orenstein, Gregory A. Poland, Lois Privor-Dumm, Sandra Crouse Quinn, Daniel Salmon, and Alexandre White, Vaccine, 2020 Oct 29:S0264-410X(20)31368-2. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2020.10.059
Transition Coverage and Clarity in Self-Insured Corporate Health Insurance Benefit Plans, with Shauhin Talesh and Angela Perone (open access in Transgender Health, September 2020, DOI: 10.1089/trgh.2020.0067)
Opinion: Use science to stop sexual harassment in higher education, with Kathryn B. H. Clancy and Lilia M. Cortina in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences September 2020, 117 (37) 22614-22618; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2016164117
Research Handbook on Sociolegal Studies of Medicine and Health with co-editor Marie-Andrée Jacob (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020).
National Academies Panel Member and co-author, Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (National Academies Press, June 2018).
Vaccine Court: The Law and Politics of Injury (New York University Press, 2016)
Co-editor with Jonathan Metzl, Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality (New York University Press, 2010) Translated into Japanese, German, and Turkish
Fat Rights: Dilemmas of Difference and Personhood (New York University Press, 2008)
Introduction and editorship of Symposium issue with David Moran and Angela Perone, “Child Abuse Evidence: Perspectives from Law, Medicine, Psychology, and Statistics,” University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, Vol. 50 Issue 3 (Spring 2017): 669-794.
“Power and Persuasion in the Vaccine Debates: An Analysis of Political Efforts and Outcomes in the States, 1998-2012,” with Denise Lillvis (first author, Political Science and Public Health doctoral student) and Anna Frick (undergraduate honors student), Milbank Quarterly, Vol. 92, No. 3 (September 2014): 475-508.
“Introduction: What Is Wellness Now?,” Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law, Vol. 39, No. 5 (October 2014): 957-970.
“Critical Approaches to Wellness,” Journal of Health Politics, Policy, and Law, Vol. 39, No. 5 (October 2014): 971-988.
“Credibility Battles in the Autism Litigation,” Social Studies of Science, Vol. 42, Issue 2 (April 2012): 237–261.
“The Legitimacy of Vaccine Critics: What’s Left after Autism?,” Journal of Health Policy, Politics and Law, Vol. 37, No. 1 (February 2012): 69-97.
(with Ben Hansen), “’How Do I Bring Diversity?’: Race and Class in the College Admissions Essay,” Law & Society Review, Vol. 45, No. 1 (2011): 103-138.
“The Environmental Account of Obesity: A Case for Feminist Skepticism,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Winter 2011): 411-436.
“Think of the Hippopotamus: Rights Consciousness in the Fat Acceptance Movement,” Law & Society Review, Vol. 42, No. 2 (June 2008): 397-431.
Fields of Study:
- law and society
- law and politics of health
- vaccines
- antidiscrimination law
- health insurance
- gender and sexuality in contemporary U.S. law
- politics of rights claiming
- sexual harassment in organizations
