Erica Passoni is a PhD Candidate in the Department of German at Princeton University. Before Princeton, she received a BA in German Studies and in English and American Studies, as well as an MA in Medieval and Early Modern Studies from the Julius-Maximilians-Universität in Würzburg.

Her dissertation, “The Other Among Us: Early Modern German Discourses on Atypical Bodies, 1500–1770,”  offers the first comprehensive interdisciplinary study of early modern German religious, scientific, legal, and cultural responses to individuals with congenital physical variations, such as skeletal dysplasia, limb differences, and fused joints. She applies methodologies from Literary Studies, History of Science and Medicine, Disability Studies, and Anthropology to analyze the impact of theological and medical debates on monstrosity, marvel, deformity, and sin in shaping cultural understandings of embodied difference. Over time, these discourses defined bodily norms and influenced how societies assigned meaning to variations that fell outside of those norms.

In addition to her studies, Erica has served as project and events coordinator, as well as moderator around campus for research initiatives and events like the Environmental History Lab, the LMU-Princeton Summer Seminar, Imaginations of the Womb graduate workshop, and the Race Before Modernity book club. She has also taught in primary and secondary schools as a German and English language instructor and educator for exchange students, refugees, children, and immigrant youth. During the academic year 2025–2026 she is serving as a member of the SHARE (Sexual Harassment/Assault Advising, Resources and Education) Graduate Peers Program.