Elizabeth Kealy-Morris

Elizabeth Kealy-Morris is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher in Dress and Belonging at Manchester Fashion Institute. Originally from the States, she worked in printing and publishing in NYC before settling in Manchester, UK. Kealy-Morris lectures across fashion studies subjects including critical theory, brand development, marketing principals, and graphic communication practice for fashion. She is associate editor of the journal Fashion, Style and Popular Culture, an imprint of Intellect Books.

Elizabeth's research is multidisciplinary in nature. She seeks connections between cultural memory, autoethnography, human geography, dress, identity, disability, belonging and wellness. She co-organised and co-led the January 2021 international symposium Face Off: The Provocation and Possibilities of Masks and Head Coverings which emerged from her interest in how society changed and adapted through the wearing of the COVID face masks during the pandemic. Elizabeth's paper for the conference, ‘Who is the Sick One Here: Mask Refusal and Ambivalent Social Identity in COVID America’, explored the links between American cultural memory of ‘The Frontier’ and the cultural trope of ‘Pioneer Spirit’ in the visceral rejection of the COVID medical mask as a symbol of fragility and sickness. This will soon be published as a chapter in an edited Intellect Books volume. She is guest editor of the Fashion, Style and Popular Culture Special Issue, 'Dressing through Pandemics'.