Join the University of Iowa (UI) Jewish Studies Network, an International Programs affinity group, as they host Samira K. Mehta for a discussion on contraception and American religion.

Her forthcoming book, God Bless the Pill: Sexuality, Contraception, and American Religion, examines the role of Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant voices in competing moral logics of contraception, population control, and eugenics from the mid-20h century to the present.

This reading is co-sponsored by the Jewish Studies Network, International Programs, Prairie Lights Books, the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, the South Asian Studies Program, the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, the African American Studies Program, the Latino/o/x Studies Program, and the Departments of American Studies; Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies; History; and Religious Studies.

Samira K. Mehta is an associate professor of Women and Gender Studies and the director of Jewish Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research and teaching focus on the intersections of religion, culture, and gender, including the politics of family life and reproduction in the United States. Her first book, Beyond Chrismukkah: The Christian-Jewish Interfaith Family in the United States (University of North Carolina Press, 2018), was a National Jewish Book Awards finalist.