Cassidy D. Ellis , PHD

Cassidy D. Ellis (PhD, University of New Mexico) is a critical cultural communication and media studies scholar. Her work is duly invested in unearthing ideologies that underly contemporary social debates and in unpacking the material histories of settler colonialism in the present. Her current project interrogates strategic anti-abortion rhetorics with a particular interest in discourses of race and personhood that produce a racialized conceptualization of "life" within the social imaginary. 

In addition to scholastic experience Dr. Ellis is a seasoned grassroots activist who has primarily worked on reproductive justice issues focused in the Deep South, West and Southwest. Her academic work and activist projects go hand-in-hand, both informing each other. Dr. Ellis believes that the best scholarship is praxis-based, applied, and informed by experiences of on-the-ground organizers. She is a co-founder of the Yellowhammer Fund (the first state-wide abortion fund in Alabama), a founding member and lead organizer of the West Alabama Clinic Defenders (a patient escort collective), the founder of the University of Alabama's Feminist Caucus (the first feminist activist organization on the campus), and has experience working in the nonprofit sector as well.

Her most recent scholarship will appear or has appeared in The Journal of Autoethnography, The Fat Studies Journal, Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, QED: A Journal of GLBTQ Worldmaking. She also has chapters the edited collections Reconstructing the South: Critical Regionalism and Southern Rhetoric (edited by Christina Moss & Brandon Inabet, University of Mississippi Press); Badass Feminist Politics: Exploring Radical Edges of Feminist Theory, Communication, and Activism (Eds. Sarah Jane Blithe & Janell C. Bauer, Rutgers University Press); The Routledge Handbook of Ethnicity and Race in Communication (Eds. Bernadette Marie Calafell & Shinsuke Eguchi, Routledge Press).

The information on this page is partial. Click here to check out a more recent CV.

PhD: University of New Mexico 2023 (Cultural Studies, Media Studies, Rhetorical Criticism)

M.A.: The University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, 2016 (Communication - Identity & Difference)

B.A.: The University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, 2013 (History)

08-2023 - Assistant Professor, Educator, University of Cincinnati ,

2021 -2022 Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Tampa, Tampa, FL

2019 -2023 Graduate Instructor of Record, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

2017 -2019 Graduate Instructor of Record, University of Denver, Denver, CO

2017 -2017 Adjunct Instructor, Lawson State Community College, Birmingham, AL

2017 -2017 Adjunct Instructor, Jefferson State Community College, Birmingham, AL

2017 -2017 Adjunct Instructor - Women's Studies, Judson College, Marion, AL

2015 -2016 Graduate Teaching Assistant - Communication Studies, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL

2015 -2015 Adjunct Instructor - Women's Studies, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL

Peer Reviewed Publications

Ellis, C. D. (2022. ) “Doctors Don’t Kill Babies! Monsters Do!”: Identifying the Discursive Assemblage of the U.S. Abortion Monster. .Text and Performance Quarterly, , 42 (1 ) ,67 -82More Information

Ellis, C. D. & Brown, L. C. (2021. ) “Eat, Pray, Party!”: Reflections on MTV’s Floribama Shore, the Florida Panhandle, and Floridan-Southern Identity .Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, , 10 (2 ) ,68 -80

Ellis, C. D. (2020. ) A Boring Day at the Clinic Is a Good Day at the Clinic: Narrative Inheritances of Anti-Abortion Violence .Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research, , 19 ,35 -52

Ellis, C. D. & Calafell, B. M. (2020. ) Toward Praxis: Interrogating Social Justice within Autoethnography.Journal of Autoethnography, , 1 (2 ) , More Information

Prohaska, A. & Ellis, C. D. (2017. ) Subversive Scholarship or Anti-Intellectual Identity Politics? An Analysis of Media Frames of Fat Studies.Fat Studies, , 6 (3 ) ,268 -280More Information

Invited Publications

Ellis, C. D. (2021. ) Intimate Allyship: Getting Political at the Kitchen Table .QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, 8 (2 ) ,113 -121

Other Publications

Ellis, C. D. (2021. ) Review of Why Karen Carpenter Matters, by Karen Tongson .QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, 8 (1 ) ,192 -194

Ellis, C. D. (2020. ) Review of At Home with Grief: Continuing Bonds with the Deceased, by Blake Paxton .Journal of Autoethnography, 1 (1 ) ,108 -110

Ellis, C. D. (2019. ) Fatness, representation, and breaking out of the ‘mind prison’: A review of Hulu’s Shrill .Fat Studies, 9 (1 ) ,89 -91

Book Chapter

Ellis, C. D. & Eguchi, S. (2023 ) Queer(er) Pastures: Re-imagining Spatiotemporal Futurities of Racialization in/through Boogie The Routledge Handbook of Ethnicity and Race in Communication .Routledge Publishing (Co-Author)

Ellis, C. D. & Gonzalez-Noueiry, S. (2022 ) Nevertheless, She Feels Pretty: A Critical Co-Constructed Autoethnography on Fat Persistence and Resistance Badass Feminist Politics: Exploring Radical Edges of Feminist Theory, Communication, and Activism .(pp. 107 -125).Rutgers University Press (Co-Author)

Ellis, C. D. & Forst, M. L. (2021 ) Songs of the South: Embodying the Crossroads of Southern Narrative Inheritances Reconstructing the South: Critical Regionalism and Southern Rhetoric .(pp. 162 -182).University of Mississippi Press (Co-Author)

Paper Presentations

Ellis, C. D. & Eguchi, S. (05-29-2022. ) “Oneness,” Disrupted: (Re)Mobilizing Ethnicity and Race as Analytics for Examining Differences in Communication .Paris, FR. Conference. Level:International

Ellis, C. D. & Ray, B. (01-03-2023. ) Writing Inside: Feeling through Poetic Autoethnography .Virtual. Conference. Level:International

Ellis, C. D. (11-16-2022. ) “Does Anybody Even Care?”: Colonial Anxieties and Iconic Fetal Images in Anti-Abortion Protest Posters .New Orleans, LA. Conference. Level:National

Ellis, C. D. (2022. ) Christianity as Anti-Abortion Settler Colonial Worldmaking: A Rhetorical Materialist Analysis of Colonialist Legacies and Logics in OB/GYN Medicine and Discourse .New Orleans, LA. Conference. Level:National

Ellis, C. D. (11-16-2021. ) Seeing is Be(liev)ing: A Feminist Theorizing of the Human through Communication, Technologies of Being, and Evidentiary Futility .Seattle, WA. Conference. Level:National

Ellis, C. D. (04-21-2023. ) “We Dare Defend Our (Reproductive) Rights”: Identifying the Postracial, Postfeminist Constitution of a Progressive Southern Woman .St. Petersburg, FL. Conference. Level:Regional

Ellis, C. D. (04-21-2023. ) “Heritage, Not Hate”?: Regional Narratives & the Violence of Southern Exceptionalism .St. Petersburg, FL. Conference. Level:Regional

01-01-2023 Graduate Student Activist Award, NCA Activism and Social Justice Division Status:Recipient Level:National Type:Recognition

-04-21-2023 Top Student Paper, Southern States Communication Association Gender Studies Division Status:Recipient Level:National Type:Recognition

-11-16-2021 Donald C. Cushman Memorial Award, National Communication Association Status:Nomination Level:National Type:Recognition

-11-16-2021 Top Student Paper, NCA Philosophy of Communication Division Status:Recipient Level:National Type:Recognition

-11-16-2020 Graduate Student Paper Prize Feminist Research Institute, University of New Mexico Status:Recipient Level:University

-01-01-2019 Doctoral Fellowship for Inclusive Engagement University of Denver Status:Recipient Level:University Type:Fellowship

UNM Communication and Journalism Graduate/Professional Association (Faculty Liasion ) Type:Departmental Service Level:Department 2021 -2022

UNM Digital Media & Communication for Health & Politics Research Group Member 2019 -2021

University of Denver - Assistant to the Graduate Director Type:Departmental Service Level:Department 2018 -2019

Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies Associate Editor Type:Editorial Service Level:National 2023

NCA Rhetoric and Communication Theory Division (Nominating Committee ) Committee Member Type:Service to Professional Associations Level:National 2023 -2024

NCA Critical and Cultural Studies Division Reviewer Type:Service to Professional Associations Level:National

NCA Caucus on LGBTQ Concerns Reviewer Type:Service to Professional Associations Level:National

NCA Women’s Caucus Reviewer Type:Service to Professional Associations Level:National

NCA International and Intercultural Communication Division Reviewer Type:Service to Professional Associations Level:National

NCA Feminist and Gender Studies Division Reviewer Type:Service to Professional Associations Level:National

NCA Ethnography Division Reviewer Type:Service to Professional Associations Level:National 2018 -2020

SSCA Rhetoric and Communication Theory Division Reviewer Type:Service to Professional Associations Level:Regional

SSCA Gender Studies Division Reviewer Type:Service to Professional Associations Level:Regional

Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies Peer Review/Referee Type:Editorial Service Level:National

Journal of Autoethnography Peer Review/Referee Type:Editorial Service Level:International

Fat Studies Journal Peer Review/Referee Type:Editorial Service Level:National

Departures in Critical Qualitative Research Peer Review/Referee Type:Editorial Service Level:National

Southern States Communication Association (Gender Studies Division ) Vice-Chair Type:Service to Professional Associations Level:Regional 2023

University of Alabama (Strategic Planning Committee’s Subcommittee on Diversity & Inclusion ) Member Type:University/College Service Level:University 2016 -2016

Tampa Bay Abortion Fund Type:Community Service Level:Local 2020 -2021

Colorado Doula Project Type:Community Service Level:State

Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains Type:Community Service Level:Regional 2017 -2020

Boulder Valley Women's Health Type:Community Service Level:Local

Yellowhammer Fund Co-Director Type:Community Service Level:State

2016: National Communication Association

2017: Southern States Communication Association

2017 -2020: Western States Communication Association

2015 -2019: Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender

2016 -2017: Southeastern Women’s Studies Association