Ugo Felicia Edu

BdA Literary Editor and Content Writer

Ugo F. Edu is a medical anthropologist working at the intersection of medical anthropology, public health, black feminism, and science, technology, and society studies (STS). Using interdisciplinary approaches, her scholarship focuses on reproductive and sexual health, gender, race, aesthetics, body knowledge, and body modifications. Her book project: The "Family Planned": Racial Aesthetics, Sterilization, and Reproductive Fugitivity in Brazil, traces the influence of an economy of race, aesthetics, and sexuality on reproductive and sterilization practices of women in Brazil. She is working on a play, “Securing Ties,” which draws heavily on her book project as a means for critical public engagement and an incorporation of the arts in her scholarship. “Securing Ties’ was a Semifinalist in the 2018 Bay Area Playwrights Festival. She has experience developing theatrical material and performing in a UCB Black Theater Workshop production titled, "At Buffalo" in 2011.  She assisted in data collection and as a capoeira consultant and performer for a theatrical piece about the Freddy Gray murder in Baltimore, written by Greg Pierotti. She has been a collaborator with Brazilian choreographer Isaura Oliveira as dance and capoeira performer since 2014 with the Teatro Brasileiro de Dança: The Bahia in Oakland Collective stage productions. She was a Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) Equity Fellow (2016-2017).