Elodie Silberstein

Elodie is an artist and an Adjunct Associate Professor at Pace University (New York City, NY). She holds a Doctor of Philosophy from the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University (Melbourne, Australia), and a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from the University Paul-Valery (Montpellier, France). Her research focuses on the representations of femininity in the visual landscape – from fine art to mass media. She investigates the way these transnational depictions reflect dominant ideologies on the axes of gender, race, and class.

Elodie is in the research phase of a new body of work focusing on the depictions of black femininity in the French sexual and national imaginary from the 20th century onwards. Her most recent article – “Have You Ever Seen the Crowd Goin’ Apeshit?”: Disrupting Representations of Animalistic Black Femininity in the French Imaginary – analyzes black politics behind Beyoncé and Jay-Z music video APES**T filmed at the Louvre Museum in Paris (Humanities 2019, 8(3), 135; https://doi.org/10.3390/h8030135)

Elodie has chaired panel discussions and written for the media on subjects ranging from the sexualization of girlhood in 19th European postcard industry (The Conversation, Notches) to the depiction of black femininity in the Barbie Fashionistas dolls (Ramona Magazine). Her work has been supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award and a Postgraduate Travel Grant Award. She recently completed a four-year membership of the Darebin Women’s Advisory Committee (DWAC) which provides guidance to the City of Darebin (Melbourne) on gender policies.