Elizabeth Whitney
Associate Professor
Speech, Communications and Theatre Arts
EMAIL: ewhitney@bmcc.cuny.edu
Office: S-628F
Office Hours: Tuesday 10 am-2 pm
Phone: +1 (212) 220-8000;ext=5342
Elizabeth Whitney is an Associate Professor in the Department of Speech, Communication, and Theatre Arts. She is the Co-Coordinator of the Communication Studies major and she teaches courses in gender & women’s studies, intercultural communication, and public speaking.
Her research focuses on creative methods of documentation including auto/ethnography, digital storytelling, and lecture performance. In 2015-2016 she was a Fulbright Scholar at University of Turku, Finland, researching arts funding and freedom of expression, and her subsequent research on queer and feminist arts communities in Finland was funded by PSC-CUNY and a BMCC Faculty Development Grant. During summer 2019 she was a Scholar in Residence at Aalto University in Helsinki, and during 2021-2022 a visiting researcher at University of Helsinki.
Previous to her appointment at BMCC, she taught courses on gender and performance at the Barnard Center for Research on Women. She was a Performance Studies Scholar in Residence in the Institute for Liberal Arts & Interdisciplinary Studies at Emerson College, and a visiting faculty in the Gender Studies program at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she also served as Assistant Director of the LGBT Resource Center.A
Expertise
Creative Scholarship, Social Justice, Performance Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Feminist Theory
Degrees
Ph.D. Southern Illinois University in Communication & Performance Studies
M.A. University of Utah in Intercultural Communication & Gender Studies
B.M. University of Montevallo in Music & Vocal Performance
Courses Taught
- This course is designed to provide an understanding of intercultural principles and perspectives when communicating with people from diverse cultures. Consideration will be given to both verbal and nonverbal communication processes in the "American" culture, co-cultures, contact cultures, and popular culture. Through readings, lectures, response papers, and interviews, as well as through in-class discussion and exercises, this course will explore how culture shapes communication, how situations are framed through cultural lenses, and how histories, perceptions, values, contexts, aspects of stereotypes, and ethnocentrism all contribute to the complexity of intercultural communication. Prerequisite: SPE 100 or SPE 102
- This introductory level, interdisciplinary course explores the basic concepts and perspectives of Gender & Women's Studies from an intersectional angle; that is, examining the ways in which gender intersects with race, ethnicity, nationality, class, sexuality, sexual identity, disability, and other categories. The concepts of gender - the roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a society considers appropriate for men and women - privilege and oppression, intersectionality, and feminist praxis will be at the core of this course. After a background in the history and significance of Gender & Women's Studies as a field of study, you will learn to critically examine how institutionalized privilege and oppression shape individual lives and intersecting identity categories.
- The aim of this course is to develop effective skills in speech communication. The student examines how to generate topics and organized ideas, masters elements of audience psychology and practices techniques of speech presentation in a public forum. All elements of speech production and presentation are considered.
Research and Projects
Advisory Board & Research Affiliate. “Anti-Semitism Undermining Democracy.” Kone Foundation project hosted at Åbo Akademi. Turku, Finland. 2023-Present.
Publications
Peer-Reviewed Research
Whitney, Elizabeth. “How I Found Myself in Finland: A Mediated Essay.” Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies.4 (2022): 1-25.
Whitney, Elizabeth. “The Sex that God Can’t See: Heteronormativity and the Erasure of Queer Desire.” For a forum devoted to Gust Yep’s influential essay “The Violence of Heteronormativity,” in QED: A Journal of Queer Worldmaking. 4.2 (2017): 143-149.
Whitney, Elizabeth. “The Dangerous Real: Mediated Queer Solo Performance in/as
Active Disruption.” For a special issue of Comparative American Studies on “Disrupting Insecurity: Grassroots Interventions.” 14.3-4 (2016): 246-260.
Whitney, Elizabeth. “Imagining Utopia, Sustaining Community: The Affective Pleasure of
Queer Performance in Finland.” For a special issue of SQS: Journal of Queer Studies in Finland on affect. 6.1 (2016).
Whitney, Elizabeth. “The Mediated Classroom: A Method for Teaching North American Studies Through Digital Storytelling.” JMC Current Issues, John Morton Center for North American Studies, University of Turku, January 21, 2016.
“Creating Future Memories: A Dialogue on Process.” In collaboration with the members of The Future Making Research Consortium. The Disruptive Journal of Media Practice. 2016.
Whitney, Elizabeth. “Queer Longing, Queer Nostalgia: A Performative Lecture on Anna Elizabeth Dickinson.” Text and Performance Quarterly. 35.4 (2015): 286-304.
Peer-Reviewed Creative Work
“Whitney, Elizabeth. “In a Glass Garden.” Thirteen Bridges Review. Featured Creative Non-Fiction, May, 2023.
Virtual International Arts Festival for Social Change. 27.10-29.10.2020.
“Run Bunny Run”: A collective art piece on COVID-19 lockdowns and digital technology (Zach Bastick, Lynette Widder, Heidi Campbell, Elizabeth Whitney). France, USA https://markdegarmodance.org/virtual-international-arts-festival-via/
Non-refereed
“Digital Storytelling in the Classroom.” Center for Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship at BMCC/CUNY. 24.3.2023.
Honors, Awards and Affiliations
Visiting Researcher, University of Helsinki, 2021-2022.
Visiting Researcher, Aalto University, 2019.
PSC/CUNY Research Foundation Award, 2017-2018.
Borough of Manhattan Community College Faculty Development Award, 2016-2017.
Fulbright Scholar, University of Turku, Finland. 2015-2016.
City University of New York, Faculty Fellowship Publication Program Grant. Spring 2015.
City University of New York, C3IRG Collaborative Research Grant (digital storytelling). 2013-2014.
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History Summer Seminar. July 2013.
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute. July 2013.
Faculty Resource Network Scholar in Residence. New York University. June 2013.
Additional Information
Conference Presentations
“My Momma Didn’t Raise No Fool: Queering Autoethnography in the Deep
South.” Queer Tentacles Conference. University of Jyväskylä. 2022.
“Avanto and Embodied Practice: Autoethnography and Digital Storytelling as
Creative Research Methods.” Feminist Matterings Conference, University of
Oulu. 2022.
“Queer and Feminist Arts Communities in Finland.” Conceptualizing Utopia: The
Gendered Politics of Public Space. Invited symposium at NYU Abu Dhabi. 2020.
“Documenting Process: Ephemerality in Queer Feminist Autoethnographic
Research Methods.” Gender in Transit Conference. University of Turku, Finland. 2018.
