Barbara Sutton

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Barbara Sutton is a Professor in the Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies Department, University at Albany. She is also affiliated with the Sociology Department and with the Africana, Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies Department. Professor Sutton's scholarly interests include body politics, human rights, collective memory, transnational gender issues, and women's activism particularly in Latin American contexts. The topics she is drawn to are broad and diverse, but reflect an overarching concern with how systems of social inequality—based on gender, race, class, sexuality, and nation—structure social experience. Another thread that connects much of her work is the transnational significance of the issues she addresses, from globalization to militarism, as illustrated by her co-edited book, Security Disarmed: Critical Perspectives on Gender, Race, and Militarization (with Sandra Morgen and Julie Novkov).

Professor Sutton has used her interest in women's bodies and embodiment as a springboard for exploring various lines of inquiry: cultural norms of femininity and beauty, the bodily scars of neoliberal economics, abortion and reproductive rights issues, interpersonal and structural violence, women's activism, and cross-border social processes. Her book, Bodies in Crisis: Culture, Violence, and Women's Resistance in Neoliberal Argentina, exemplifies this approach. Other projects, such as her book, Surviving State Terror: Women’s Testimonies of Repression and Resistance in Argentina, also emphasize the role of the body in relation to violence, in this case state violence. This project explores questions related to collective memory, body and voice, survival and resistance, and women's historical and political agency. More recently, her co-edited book Abortion and Democracy: Contentious Body Politics in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay (with Nayla Luz Vacarezza) delves into the successes, challenges, and strategies of abortion rights activists in the Southern Cone of Latin America. In 2023, she published Bulletproof Fashion: Security, Emotions, and the Fortress Body, a book that focuses on the United States.

Professor Sutton believes that a transnational awareness is essential to understanding timely political matters, including the changes brought about by economic globalization, armed conflict, migration patterns, and women’s local and cross-border activism. Professor Sutton is interested in global issues both from an academic and a personal standpoint. She maintains strong ties to her country of origin, Argentina, and has participated in dialogues with women from diverse regions, including in academic and activist arenas.
 

GRADUATE COURSES

• Feminist Theory
• Global Politics of Women's Bodies
• Gender and Class in Latin American Development
• Research Seminar in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
• Graduate Orientation
• Advanced Feminist Theory & Pedagogy

UNDERGRADUATE COURSES

• Women Creating Change
• Classism, Racism, Sexism: Issues
• Feminist Social and Political Thought
• Global Perspectives on Women
• Gender and Class in Latin American Development
• Research Seminar in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies