Elena Vasiliou - GWS Visiting Scholar
Dr. Elena Vasiliou is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow (2022-2024) in the Department of Gender and Women's Studies at UC Berkeley, as well as at the University of Warwick (UK). Elena is a psychologist, educator, and queer scholar who works in the intersectional spaces of queer theory, prison studies, decolonial theory, and psychoanalysis. Her work explores the concept of pleasure as well as the nexus of relations between power/pleasure/resistance and pain in prison settings. Elena’s post-doctoral project approaches self-harm in prison settings using a queer theory lens. This theoretical perspective offers a more holistic understanding of self-harm without pathologizing the prisoner and with a special focus on how gender and sexuality factor into self-destructing behaviors. As a current Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow, Elena’s project work is conducted in two phases: In the ongoing first phase (2022-2023), she is working with Associate Professor Eric Stanley at the Gender and Women's Department of UC Berkeley to develop a framework for her research. During the second phase (2024), she is working with Associate Professor Anastasia Chamberlen at the University of Warwick Sociology Department to conduct research with ex-prisoners on the issues of self harm in prison.
Since September 2022 Elena has been an educator at San Quentin Prison and works voluntarily for Mount Tamalpais College, which provides higher education to incarcerated students. Prior to this, she taught at Nicosia Central Prison in Cyprus (2010-2015) and has worked extensively with psychiatric patients in social care homes (2010-2019). Furthermore, and parallel to her appointment, she has participated in many European projects as a researcher on LGBTQ issues, queer parenting, and prison studies and has also collaborated with queer/feminist anarchist groups in Cyprus to offer solidarity to immigrants issues, domestic workers' issues, and the reunification of the island.
Elena holds a Ph.D. in Women's and Gender studies from the University of Cyprus and an M.A. and B.A. in psychology from Panteion University in Athens.