Registration coming soon

Join us for a Research Fridays event with Dr. Sarah Raskin, Associate Professor and Assistant Chair of Urban and Regional Studies and Planning in the Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at VCU.

Description

Cardi B announced her musical arrival in 2017 with the unforgettable line, "Got a bag and fixed my teeth," proudly asserting how her accumulated wealth paved - or really, veneered - her access to a "Hollywood smile."  Yet the popular ideas about dental beauty are neither random, nor merely about dental beauty itself. Rather, they hide a history of professional dentistry in which structural oppression features prominently. In this presentation, Dr. Raskin will share from her work-in-progress, A Social History of Structural Racism in U.S. Professional Dentistry, 1815 to present. Drawing together an exploration of dentition in popular culture, a critical examination of dental educational materials, and evidence of the American Dental Association's fraught compliance with the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Dr. Raskin will argue that structural racism is, rather than ancillary to the history of U.S. dentistry, foundational to it.

About the Speaker

Sarah E. Raskin, Ph.D., MPH is an Associate Professor and Assistant Chair of Urban and Regional Studies and Planning in the Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs. Cross-trained in medical anthropology, public health, and theatre and film, Dr. Raskin was a 2024-25 Humanities Research Center Residential Fellow, is an active member of the Health Humanities Lab in the Humanities Research Center, and holds courtesy appointments in the VCU School of Dentistry, Media, Art, and Text program, and Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies.