Bethany Knowles PhD Candidate
Supervisor: Dr. Erika DyckMy dissertation examines the theme of abstinence through an examination of non-medical intervention and educational campaigns of the twentieth century, like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), and Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE). Examining abstinence education through the lens of social, medical, religious, and gender history complicates temperance history to trace the medicalization of addiction, religious and gendered consequences and roots of abstinence, and the role sobriety played in a person’s identity as the ideal citizen throughout the twentieth century in Canada and the United States.
Research Area(s)
- Alchohol History
- First-Wave Feminist History
- Women’s/Gender History
- Canadian History
- Religious History
- History of Activism
- Medical History
Dissertation Title:
Conference Presentations (Select):
The “Saint of Science:” Darwin’s Impact on Protestant Leaders in the early Twentieth Century at the Manitoba-Northwest Ontario-Minnesota-Saskatchewan (MOMS) History of Medicine Conference, Oct. 19, 2024.
“Even and Equal with the wife of his Bosom”: Western Canadian Women’s Political Voice in Letters to Emily Murphy at the Western Canadian Studies Conference, Sept. 12, 2024.
“Remember Lives Not Numbers” at the Canadian Historical Association Annual Conference, May 29, 2023 (Co-Presented with Dr. Erika Dyck).
“Guardian of the Race?: The Career and Activism of Emily Murphy in Historical Context” at the Manitoba-Northwest Ontario Minnesota-Saskatchewan (MOMS) History of Medicine Conference, Oct. 23, 2022.