Denise A. Copelton, PhD

Denise A. Copelton, PhD

Professor & Chair

(585) 395-5668
dcopelto@brockport.edu
Office:  204A Hartwell Hall

Areas of Specialization

• Sociology of Health & Illness
• Sociology of Food & Nutrition
• Sociology of Families

Courses Taught

Undergraduate

• Introduction to Sociology
• Health, Medicine & Society
• Sociology of Food
• Deviant Behavior
• Sociology of Families
• Research Methods

Graduate: (for MA in Liberal Studies)

• Families & Society
• Social Science Perspectives on Health & Medicine

Research Interests

My current research centers on the social experience of illness. I am interested in the social experience of living with celiac disease, an auto-immune disorder triggered by ingesting gluten, a protein in wheat, barley and rye. The only remedy is lifelong adherence to a gluten-free diet. I examine the challenges persons with celiac face as they attempt to obtain a diagnosis and, once diagnosed, how they negotiate the diet within the context of families, friends, and a social landscape of food not conducive to gluten-free eating.

Grants & Awards

• SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Service, 2019
• SUNY Brockport Scholarly Incentive Grant, Fall 2015.
• SUNY Brockport Office for Students with Disabilities, Outstanding Faculty Award, Grand Prize Winner, 2009-2010.
• United University Professions Individual Development Grant for “Feeding the Celiac Family,” Fall 2009.
• SUNY Brockport Scholarly Incentive Grant for “Feeding the Celiac Family,” Fall 2009.
• SUNY Brockport Outstanding Academic Advising Award, 2008-2009.
• New York State United University Professions, Dr. Nuala McGann Drescher Affirmative Action/Diversity Leave Grant for “The Social Experience of Celiac Disease,” Spring 2009.
• Mentor of the Year. SUNY Brockport, Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program, 2007-2008.
• United University Professions Individual Development Grant for “The Social Experience of Celiac Disease,” Fall 2008.
• SUNY Brockport Scholarly Incentive Grant for “The Social Experience of Celiac Disease,” Fall 2008.

CV

• Selected Publications

  Weiss, Gregory and Denise A. Copelton. 2020. Sociology of Health, Healing & Illness (10th ed.). NY: Routledge.

  Copelton, Denise A. 2020. “Bothersome Bowels & Fetid Flatulence: Managing Stigmatizing Gastrointestinal Symptoms of Celiac Disease.” In Deviance Today (2nd ed.), edited by Alex Thio, Thomas Calhoun, & Addrain Conyers.

  Copelton, Denise A. 2016. “Gluten-free Eating and Gendered Feeding Work in Families Affected by Celiac Disease.” Advances in Gender Research. 22: 143-164.

  Guptill, Amy, Denise A. Copelton and Betsy Lucal. 2016. Food & Society: Principles & Paradoxes (2nd ed). Polity Press. (1st edition, 2013)

  Copelton, Denise A. 2013. "Diagnosis as Stigma Management: The Case of Highly Stigmatized Gastrointestinal Symptoms of Celiac Disease." Article #20 in Deviance Today, edited by Alex Thio, Thomas Calhoun, & Addrain Conyers. Pearson.

  Copelton, Denise A. 2011. "Advocacy and Everyday Health Activism among Persons with Celiac Disease: A Comparison of Eager, Reluctant, and Non-Activists." Pp. 561-575 in Taking Food Public: Redefining Foodways in a Changing World, edited by Carole Counihan and Psyche Williams-Forson. NY: Routledge.

  Copelton, Denise A., Rebecca McGee, Andrew Coco, Isis Shanbaky, and Timothy Riley. 2010. “The Ideological Work of Infant Feeding.” In Giving Breast Milk, edited by Rhonda Shaw and Alison Bartlett. Toronto: Demeter Press.

  Copelton, Denise A. 2010. “Output that Counts: Pedometers, Sociability & the Contested Terrain of Older Adult Fitness Walking.” Sociology of Health & Illness, 32(2): 304-18.

  Reprinted in: Joyce, Kelly and Meika Loe (Ed.s). (2010). Technogenarians: Studying Health and Illness Through an Ageing, Science, and Technology Lens (Sociology of Health & Illness Monograph Series). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

  Copelton, Denise A. 2010. “Eating for Two: How Pregnant Women Neutralize Nutritional Deviance.” Pp. 281-5 in Readings in Deviant Behavior (6th ed.), edited by Alex Thio, Thomas Calhoun, & Addrain Conyers. New York: Allyn & Bacon.

  Copelton, Denise A. and Giuseppina Valle. 2009. “‘You Don’t Need a Prescription to Go Gluten-Free’: The Scientific Self-Diagnosis of Celiac Disease.” Social Science & Medicine, 69(4): 623-31.

  Copelton, Denise A. 2009. “Neutralization and Emotion Work in Women’s Accounts of Light Drinking in Pregnancy.” Pp. 13-24 in Mother Knows Best, edited by Jessica Nathanson and Laura Tuley. Toronto: Demeter Press.

  Copelton, Denise A. 2007. “You Are What You Eat: Nutritional Norms, Maternal Deviance and Neutralization of Women’s Prenatal Diets.” Deviant Behavior, 28: 467-494.

  Copelton, Denise A. 2004. “Menstrual Extraction, Abortion, and the Political Context of Feminist Self-Help.” Advances in Gender Research, 8: 129-164.

  Copelton, Denise A. 2002. “Assessing the Social Impact of Mifepristone in the United States – A Pro-Choice Perspective,” and “On Myth Making and Prediction: A Response to Morris.” Kansas Journal of Law and Public Policy, 11(2): 333-362.

Last Updated 4/19/22