Clare Daniel is an American Studies scholar, Senior Professor of Practice, and Director of Research at Tulane University’s Newcomb Institute. She received her doctorate and master’s in American Studies from the University of New Mexico and her bachelor’s degree from Macalester College in German Studies and English with a Women and Gender Studies minor. Her book Mediating Morality: The Politics of Teen Pregnancy in the Post-Welfare Era was published in 2017 by the University of Massachusetts Press. Her writings have also appeared in such publications as Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric and Society, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Feminist Media Studies, and others. She was awarded the 2020 Coalition Builder Award from the National Women’s Studies Association for her work with the New Orleans Maternal and Child Health Coalition. In 2024, with her colleagues Karissa Haugeberg and Kate Baldwin, she was awarded a Sawyer Seminar grant from the Mellon Foundation to co-lead a two-year series of events devoted to exploring the role of the humanities in reproductive rights, health, and justice in the Gulf South.
“Anyone who is doing research on teen pregnancy—from any perspective—should read this book, including people who might not usually engage in thinking about theories like intimate citizenship, biopolitics, and neoliberalism. Daniel writes about these topics in a very approachable fashion.” —Tasha N. Dubriwny, author of The Vulnerable Empowered Woman: Feminism, Postfeminism, and Women’s Health
“Mediating Morality is lucidly written, meticulously researched, and thoughtfully constructed. It is an important contribution to scholars across disciplines working on women’s reproduction, youth cultures, media studies, and contemporary neoliberal discourses. I also hope it falls into the hands of policymakers, social activists, and nonprofit leaders because it has the potential to change current framings of teen pregnancy and sex education.” —Karen Weingarten, author of Abortion in the American Imagination: Before Life and Choice, 1880–1940
“Together, the chapters clearly contribute to a multifaceted analysis of [teen pregnancy]. Yet the text’s strength also lies in potential for chapter analyses to stand on their own and to by used individually within a classroom setting. Daniel’s close rhetorical analysis of public policies, political hearing transcripts, and pop culture texts makes an important intervention in current discussions of teen pregnancy prevention campaigns, identifying them as lying at the intersection of social reform rhetoric and popular culture. Daniel demonstrates that these mediated texts are a deliberate outgrowth of political and public policy decisions, and that as the tools of those decisions, they help to fulfill neoliberal ideals regarding citizenship, adolescence, and timing of pregnancy.” —Letizia Guglielmo in the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth