Faculty

Elise Martel Cohen, PhD

About

Dr. Martel began teaching in the Sociology department in the fall of 2008. In addition to teaching at Loyola, she has taught courses at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Lewis University, and spent years working in the Strategic Research departments of advertising agencies and labor unions. Her areas of research and publication include the sociology of religion, identity, work and occupations, economic sociology, intersections of race/ethnicity/gender, and inequality.

Currently Dr. Martel is working on a book that, inspired by her father, applies the sociological imagination to the trajectories of religious minorities in and from Istanbul, Turkey. She is also working on a manuscript based on her dissertation that examines structure, culture, and “selective solidarities” in a scrap metal yard in Chicago. Dr. Martel spent two years vending at the New Maxwell Street Market for her M.A. thesis, five years working alongside scrap metal collectors for her dissertation, and several years waitressing at a biker bar for her article “From Mensch to Macho: The Social Construction of a Jewish Masculinity”. Though her published research to date has been based on qualitative methods—principally ethnography—Dr. Martel is a skilled statistician and mixed-methodologist. With varied interests, the orientation guiding her work is the investigation of social, symbolic, and economic logics of social life.

A daughter of immigrant and working class parents, Dr. Martel grew up on Devon Avenue and feels a special connection to the place of Rogers Park and to first generation college students.

Degrees

PhD, Sociology
University of Illinois at Chicago. Chicago, IL 2006.

MA, Sociology
University of Illinois at Chicago. Chicago, IL 1998.

BA, Sociology
Northland College, Ashland, WI 1992

Professional & Community Affiliations

Martel Cohen, Elise. 2015. Section on Labor and Labor Movements. Roundtable facilitator. American Sociological Association. Chicago, 2015.

Martel Cohen, Elise. 2014. “Nested Lives: Using The Sociological Imagination to Understand the Choices and Trajectories of Minorities and Ottoman Subjects in Istanbul after the Fall of the Empire”. Levantine Heritage Foundation Conference (November). Istanbul, Turkey.

Martel Cohen, Elise. 2014. “A Panel on Praxis: Linking Academics and Levantine Families to Further Research”. Panel Discussant. Levantine Heritage Foundation Conference (November). Istanbul, Turkey.

Martel Cohen, Elise. 2012. “Structure, Culture, and Selective Solidarities in a Scrap Metal Yard in Chicago.” Presented at the Eastern Sociological Society Annual Meeting (Feb.). NYC.

Martel, Elise. 2002. Discussant at the “Building Bridges and Making Weak Ties Strong” Sociology Conference. University of Illinois at Chicago.

Martel, Elise. 2001. “Corporate Research Fundamentals.” Presented at the Corporate Campaigning Conference, George Meany Center for Labor Studies. Silver Springs, MD.

Martel, Elise. 1998. "From Mensch to Macho: The Social Construction of a Jewish Masculinity." Presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting (August). San Francisco, CA.

Warner, R. Stephen, Elise Martel, and Rhonda Dugan. 1998. "Catholicism is to Velcro as Islam is to Teflon: Religion and Ethnic Culture among Second Generation Latino/a and Muslima College Students." Presented at the Midwest Sociological Society Annual Meeting (April). MO.

Popkin, Susan, Victoria Gwiasda, Elise Martel, and Jean Amendolia. 1996. "Paddling Upstream: The Struggle to Contain Crime in Chicago's Public Housing". Presented at the American Society for Criminologists Annual Meeting (November). Chicago, Illinois.

Gwiasda, Victoria, Susan Popkin, and Elise Martel. 1996. "Confronting the Challenges of Data Collection in Distressed Public Housing." Presented at the American Association for Public Opinion Research Annual Meeting (May). Salt Lake City, Utah.

Martel, Elise. 1996. "Does Informal Economic Activity Detract From or Add to Local Formal Economy? How the Closing of Chicago's Maxwell Street Market Affects Local Merchants." Presented at the Informal Sector and the Urban Economy Session Round table at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting (August). NYC.

Martel, Elise. 1996. "From Market to Market: The Re-Institutionalization of Chicago's Maxwell Street Market." Presented at the Midwest Sociological Society Annual Meeting (April). Chicago, Ill.

Martel, Elise. 1996. Session Organizer: Film and discussion: "And This is Free." Presented at the Midwest Sociological Society Annual Meeting (April). Chicago, Illinois.

Courses Taught

• Principles of Social Research
• Racial and Ethnic Groups in the US
• Religion and Society
• Social Problems
• Sociology of Sport
• Society in a Global Age (Introduction to Sociology)
• Statistics for Social Research

Awards

Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching Freshman

Sujack Award for Teaching Excellence

Selected Publications

Warner, R. Stephen, Elise Martel, and Rhonda Dugan. 2012. "Catholicism is to Velcro as Islam is to Teflon: Religion and Ethnic Culture among Second Generation Latino/a and Muslima College Students", in Sustaining Faith Traditions: Race, Ethnicity and Religion among the Latino and Asian American Second Generation, ed. Carolyn Chen. NYU Press.

Martel, Elise. 2009. “Yard Games: The Social, Symbolic, and Economic Logic of Exchange in a Scrap Metal Yard in Chicago”. Research in the Sociology of Work Volume 18, 233–260.

Martel, Elise. 2005. Article referee for the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Routledge: University of Sussex.

Martel, Elise. 2001. "From Mensch to Macho: The Social Construction of a Jewish Masculinity." Men and Masculinities 3:4: 347–369. Sage Publications. [Also appears as a bibliographic entry in American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia, 2003 ed. Bret E. Carroll, Sage Publications].