Brittany Leach | SIU

Political Science and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies

Brittany R. Leach is an Assistant Professor in the School of Anthropology, Political Science, and Sociology. She received a PhD in Political Theory with a secondary concentration in Comparative Politics from the University of Virginia (UVA) and an MA in Political Science & International Affairs from the University of Georgia. Previously, she was a Charlotte Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship at the Citizens & Scholars Foundation and served a two-year term as an Assistant Editor at the journal Political Theory. She has published articles on abortion politics in the American Political Science Review, Contemporary Political Theory, and Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. Additionally, she is active in public scholarship and community engagement.

Prof. Leach’s primary areas of research and teaching are feminist political theory, intersectionality, reproductive freedom and justice, transnational feminism, gender & the law, and social movements. Her current book project, tentatively entitled Reproductive Freedom Beyond Individualism: Abortion, Bodily Autonomy, and Feminist Community aims to complicate borders and boundaries in the context of pregnant bodies and bodies politic, arguing that blurring distinctions between individual and community can reinforce rather than undermine feminist defenses of reproductive autonomy.​ 

Prof. Leach teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Political Science, Sociology, and cross-listed courses in WGSS. At SIU, she has taught undergraduate courses on the Politics of Diversity in the United States (POLS 215), Gender and Global Politics (POLS 456/WGSS 446), Women & the Law (POLS 438/WGSS 438). At the graduate level, she has taught a Seminar in Race and Ethnic Relations (SOC 552). In the future, she plans to teach courses on Social Change (SOC 406), Qualitative Methodology (SOC 514), Reproductive Justice, American Political Thought, and other topics. Her courses invite students to think critically about gender in the context of politics, law, and society. They often emphasize marginalized perspectives, the politics of identity, and issues of diversity, inequality, and justice. 

For more information, including copies of recent publications, see Prof. Leach’s professional website: https://brl4xd.wixsite.com/brittanyrleach