Faculty
Patrick McElearney
Associate Professor of Instruction
CONTACT INFORMATION
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. McElearney joined the faculty at the University of South Florida in Fall 2020 after previously holding faculty appointments at Louisiana State University. His research examines the intersections of health, illness, identity, embodiment, narrative, and performance. Drawing primarily from critical qualitative, ethnographic, autoethnographic, narrative, and performative approaches, his work explores how individuals make sense of, communicate, and perform experiences of health and illness within broader sociocultural contexts.
Much of Dr. McElearney’s research focuses on adolescent cancer and its long-term effects on identity and embodiment. His earlier work examined how adolescents narratively and performatively construct cancer experiences, while his current research extends this work to cancer survivorship, including the continued medical surveillance of the body, experiences of liminality and unbelonging, and embodied acts of resistance and reclamation. His research also explores performance and healthcare communication, including the use of performative approaches to patient-centered communication and healthcare education. In addition, Dr. McElearney has published work on performance and communication pedagogy.
Outside of academic scholarship, Dr. McElearney has numerous credits in directing, writing, and performing in theatrical productions at multiple venues as well as a two-dimensional artist who likes to paint and sketch in his free time.
RESEARCH AREAS
Health Communication, Performance Studies, Narrative Studies, Critical Culture, Critical Pedagogy, and (Auto)Ethnography
RESEARCH clusters
Health Communication; Interpersonal and Relational Communication; Media, Culture and Performance