Julie Passanante Elman

Associate Professor, Women's & Gender Studies
325 Strickland
Bio

Julie Passanante Elman is currently Associate Professor of Women's & Gender Studies and Affiliated Faculty in the Department of Sociology at the University of Missouri. From 2021-2023, she has served as Faculty Fellow of Humanities Initiatives and Inclusive Culture in the College of Arts & Science. In that role, she developed a workshop series about classroom strategies to foster a sustainable culture of mental health for instructors and students. Currently, she is leading the creation of the university’s first Humanities Center and a new B.A. program in Health Humanities, both of which she will subsequently direct. Elman earned her Ph.D. in American Studies from George Washington University in 2009. Prior to joining the University of Missouri, she previously served as Lecturer of Television Studies/Media Theory at University College Dublin (Republic of Ireland) and Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow of Gender and Sexuality Studies in New York University's Department of Social & Cultural Analysis, where she developed NYU’s first-ever undergraduate disability studies course. Elman’s research focuses broadly on disability studies; feminist and queer theory; science studies; and U.S. media and cultural history. She has published one monograph, Chronic Youth: Disability, Sexuality, and US Media Cultures of Rehabilitation (Social & Cultural Analysis Series, NYUP, 2014) and is currently working on her second, Capacity Feminism and Its Discontents, which analyzes feminist notions of strength and resilience alongside crip of color feminisms organized around revolutionary rest. Elman's research has also appeared in Feminist Formations, Feminist Media Studies, Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, New Media & Society, Somatosphere, and Television & New Media and was featured in the first-ever anthology of disability media studies scholarship from NYU Press, Disability Media Studies (Elizabeth Ellcessor and William Kirkpatrick, eds). Finally, Elman’s teaching excellence was recognized with two University of Missouri campus-level awards: the University of Missouri Provost’s Outstanding Junior Faculty Teaching Award (2015) and the Maxine Christopher Shutz Award and Lecture for Distinguished Teaching (2020). In recognition of her contributions to disability advocacy and inclusion in research, teaching and service, Elman also received the University of Missouri’s Lee Henson Memorial Access Mizzou Award in 2020. 

Dr. Julie Elman