Elizabeth Fein is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at Duquesne University. She is the author of Living on the Spectrum: Autism and Youth in Community (NYU Press, 2020) and co-editor of Autism in Translation: An Intercultural Conversation on Autism Spectrum Conditions (Palgrave, 2018), and is the singer in Pittsburgh darkwave band Take Me With You. 

What most excites you about becoming the Associate Editor at CMP?

This journal has been one of the foundations of my whole professional identity and way of thinking. I feel like I’ve been invited into the backroom of my favorite bar. It’s really a thrill to be able to participate more actively in the making of a space that I’ve gained so much from over the years.
 

How has CMP shaped your own career? Do you have a favorite CMP article from the past that we can paste a link to here?

Probably the CMP article that I know the best is this one: “Social defeat and the culture of chronicity: or, why schizophrenia does so well over there and so badly here” because I teach it almost every year, in both my graduate and undergraduate courses. It’s a big, important argument that has many different pieces to it, and I think only a journal like CMP would be able to hold space for all those pieces to hang together. My most-cited article is in CMP as well (“Making meaningful worlds: role-playing subcultures and the autism spectrum”) – it tells a big, weird, wonderful story that fit perfectly under the expansive CMP umbrella.

What are you most excited about with your own work right now?

Figuring out ways for clinically-minded people to incorporate culture into our psychological constructs. Experimenting with new forms of writing and other kinds of expression. Working with some really sharp-minded, compassionate and creative students.

What are you reading, listening to, and/or watching right now?

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke just turned my mind inside out. Reading it felt more like having a life experience than reading a book. There’s a musician from Vermont who records under the name Dutch Experts who I’m really into these days. My band Take Me With You was supposed to play a show with her, but we had to cancel. Stupid COVID. hemlocke springs, Haute & Freddy are two other current favorites.

Any quick advice for aspiring young clinician/social scientists?

Hold on to your joy.