Alexandra Rutherford

Faculty & School/Dept.

Faculty of Health - Department of Psychology

Degrees

PhD - 2001
York University
Toronto

MA - 1995
York University
Toronto

BSc - 1993
University of Toronto
Toronto

Selected Publications

BOOKS

Rutherford, A. (under contract). Between science and politics: Feminist psychology in late-20th century America. Oxford University Press.

Rutherford, A. (2021). Psychology at the intersections of gender, feminism, history, and culture. In K. Keith (Ed.), Elements of Psychology and Culture series.  Cambridge University Press. [short monograph]

Pickren, W. E. & Rutherford, A. (Eds.) (2018). 125 years of the American Psychological Association. Washington, DC: APA Books.

Fancher, R. & Rutherford, A. (2017). Pioneers of psychology, 5th Edition. New York: Norton. [4th edition, 2012]

Rutherford, A., Capdevila, R., Undurti, V., & Palmary, I. (Eds.). (2011). Handbook of international feminisms: Perspectives on psychology, women, culture, and rights. New York: Springer.

• Winner of the 2012 Distinguished Publication Award from the Association for Women in Psychology

Pickren, W. E. & Rutherford, A. (2010). A history of modern psychology in context.  New York: Wiley.

Rutherford, A. (2009). Beyond the box: B. F. Skinner’s technology of behavior from laboratory to life, 1950s-1970s. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

JOURNAL ARTICLES and BOOK CHAPTERS

Bhatia, S., Long, W., Pickren, W., & Rutherford, A. (2024). Engaging withdecolonization, decoloniality, and histories of psychology otherwise. In L. Comas-Diaz, H. Adames, and N. Chavez (Eds.), Decolonial psychology: Toward anticolonial theories, research, training, and practice (pp. 66-85), APA.

Rutherford, A. (2022). The historiography of the ‘behavioral sciences’ in the 21st century. Physis: International Journal of the History of Science, LVII, 111-123. 

Fabricius, A., O’Doherty, K. & Rutherford, A. (2022). Navigating violence and risk: A critical discourse analysis of blind women’s portrayals of self-protective measures. Feminism & Psychology, 32(4), 443-461.

Ruck, N. Hametner, K., Rutherford, A., Brunner, M., & Wrbouscheck, M. (2021), Psychologies of not knowing: On the (re)production of oppression via processes of not knowing or ignorance. International Review of Theoretical Psychologies, 1(2), 193-208.

Rutherford, A. (2021). Mobilizing, materializing, and contesting social science history. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 57(1), 5-11.

Rutherford, A. (2020). Doing science, doing gender: Using history in the present. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 40, 21-31.

George, M. L., Mulvale, S. M., Davidson, T., Young, J. L. & Rutherford, A. (2020). Disrupting androcentrism in social psychology textbooks: A call for critical reflexivity. Awry: Journal of Critical Psychology, 1, 15-33.

Hegarty, P., & Rutherford, A. (2019). Histories of psychology after Stonewall: Introduction to the special issue. American Psychologist, 74(8), 857-867.

Rutherford, A. & Davidson, T. (2019). Intersectionality and the history of psychology. In W. E. Pickren (Ed.) Oxford research encyclopedia of the history of psychology. Oxford University Press.

Rutherford, A. (2019). Gender. In R. Sternberg & W. E. Pickren (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of the intellectual history of psychology (pp. 345-370). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rutherford, A. (2018). Feminism, psychology and the gendering of neoliberal subjectivity: From critique to disruption. Theory & Psychology, 28, 619-644.

Rutherford, A. (2017). Surveying rape: Feminist social science and the ontological politics of sexual assault. History of the Human Sciences, 30, 100-123.

Rutherford, A. (2017). “Making better use of U.S. women:” Psychology, sex roles, and womanpower in post-WWII America. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 53, 228-245.

Other Research Outputs

Psychology's Feminist Voices

http://www.feministvoices.com/

A multimedia internet archive showcasing the women of psychology's past and the diverse voices of contemporary feminist psychologists.

SPSSI Was There

http://www.spssitimeline.org/

An interactive timeline conveying the synergy between science and society through the history of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.

Affiliations

CHEIRON

History of Science Society

Society for the History of Psychology

Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues

Society for the Psychology of Women

Partnerships

I Am Psyched! Inspiring History, Inspiring Lives: Women of Color in Psychology
A multimedia pop-up exhibit developed in collaboration with the Women’s Programs Office of the American Psychological Association and the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology for a special edition of the Smithsonian’s Museum Day Live! in 2016. Through panels, videos, and interactives, it explores the history of women of color in psychology and how they have used their unique perspectives to advance knowledge and impact society. It is designed to engage girls of color and excite them about careers in the social and behavioral sciences.

Service/Community Activities

Center for the History of Psychology
Chair, Advisory Board

Society for the History of Psychology
2013 President

Awards

Carolyn W. Sherif Award, Society for the Psychology of Women - 2023

Career Achievement Award, Society for the History of Psychology - 2023

Teaching Resource Award, Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) - 2017

Florence Denmark Distinguished Mentoring Award, Association for Women in Psychology - 2016

Supervision

Currently available to supervise graduate students: Yes

Currently taking on work-study students, Graduate Assistants or Volunteers: No

Available to supervise undergraduate thesis projects: No

Current Research

History of women, gender, and feminist activism in psychology; objectivity, advocacy, and activist social science in the 20^th century; science and public policy.

Research Projects

Intersecting Difference: Gender, race, and sexuality in 20th century U.S. psychology
This project aims to construct an intersectional history of 20th century U.S. psychology that examines how the formations of race, gender, and sexuality and their corresponding social movements have braided together in the field’s theories, practices, disciplinary evolution, and activism. This project asks what it might mean to make histories of race psychology more central to our understanding of the psychology of gender, histories of gender more central to the psychology of race, and how psychologies of sexual orientation and gender diversity intersect with both. This project will push the historiography of psychology towards a more thoroughgoing consideration of how multiple social categories have functioned together to reinforce relations of power, and with what effects on the operation of the field, its theories and findings, and its social influence.
Role: Principal Investigator
Amount funded: $134,000
Year Funded: 2023
Duration: 5
Funded by: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

Curriculum Vitae (C.V. file):

CV of Alexandra Rutherford