The Centre has strong links across the University, with affiliated academics from the Schools of English, Media Film & Music, Global Studies, History Art History & Philosophy and the Institute of Development Studies. We also maintain close links with the University of Brighton and the wider Brighton and Sussex communities.
Rosalind Galt is Reader in Film Studies in the School of Media, Film and Music. Her research broadly addresses the intersections of gender and sexuality with geopolitics and history in world cinemas. Her recent book Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image (Columbia UP, 2011) argues for the queer potential of decorative style, and she has published on topics including cinematic masochism, Derek Jarman and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. She is currently working on a collaborative project on global queer cinema, the Global Queer Cinema (GQC) project.
Olu Jenzen is Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Brighton. Her research interests are clustered around popular culture, cultural text and the politics of form; trauma and text; non-normative epistemologies; and debates on the politics of sexualities. She received her PhD in English from Sussex in 2009 and has subsequently published on themes such as dissident sexuality, trauma, otherness and textuality in contemporary literature, the queer uncanny and sexuality and temporality. She is the co-editor of the forthcoming double issue of Journal of Lesbian Studies (Routledge) ‘Revolting Bodies: Desiring Lesbians’.
Michael Lawrence's research interests include: histories and theories of film performance and stardom, particularly child, non-professional and animal actors; screen adaptations; and popular Indian cinema. He has recently begun curating and introducing queer cinema for Eyes Wide Open at the Duke of York's cinema in Brighton and for the annual London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.
Dr Pawel Leszkowicz is an art historian, academic lecturer and freelance curator specializing in contemporary art and LGBTQ studies, working in Poland and the UK. He has written four books: Helen Chadwick: The Iconography of Subjectivity (2001), Love and Democracy: Reflections on the Homosexual Question in Poland (2005), Art Pride: Gay Art from Poland (2010), and The Naked Man: The Male Nude in post-1945 Polish Art (2012). He has curated and co-organised several international queer exhibitions and symposia including: Love and Democracy (2006), Vogue (2009), Ars Homo Erotica (2010), Love is Love: Art as LGBTQ Activism from Britain to Belarus (2011), Civil Partnerships: Feminist and Queer Art and Activism in the UK (2012), Exhibitionism: A Symposium on Queer Curatorial Practices in the UK (2011), A Symposium on Contemporary Queer Art in the UK (2012). He is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Sussex and is working on a comparative study of LGBTQ rights and art in the UK and Poland. He can be reached at the following email address: P.Leszkowicz@sussex.ac.uk.
Sharif Mowlabocus is a Lecturer in Digital Media, having graduated with a PhD in Media and Cultural Studies from the University of Sussex in 2006. His research to date has primarily focused on the production, maintenance and representation of sexual cultures in digital environments. His first monograph Gaydar Culture (2010) explored the British gay men's use of digital media and his recent work explores the politics of sexual risk and desire as they manifest themselves in contemporary pornography forms.
Rachel O'Connell is the Director of the Centre of the Study of Sexual Dissidence. She specialises in Victorian literature, specifically the fin de siecle, and in queer, gender, and disability studies. She is currently working on a history of lifestyle cultures/journalism in Britain. She teaches the MA course Critical Issues in Queer Theory.
Jason Price researches queer theatre and performance, with a particular focus on work that has emerged since the 1970s, including that by Gay Sweatshop, the Gay Theatre Alliance and The Ridiculous Theatrical Company. As a scholar of protest dramaturgy and radical theatre, Jason is also interested in the aesthetics of LGBT social movements. In his upcoming book Popular Theatres (Palgrave Macmillan 2014) he considers, amongst other questions, the aesthetic tactics of advocacy groups like ACT UP and Queer Nation. As an advocate, he has worked extensively with the Camden LGBT Forum in London and volunteered with Stonewall.
John David Rhodes has published work on a number of queer filmmakers, including Pier Paolo Pasolini, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Todd Haynes, and Barbara Hammer. He is broadly interested in queer theory, and queer aesthetics, with a special interest in relations among queerness, style, and labour.
Lucy Robinson is herself a graduate of the Sexual Dissidence masters programme. Following this she moved into the History department at Sussex. Her book Gay Men and the Left in Britain: How The Personal Got Political (MUP, 2007) was shortlisted for an Erotic Award. Her current projects continue to focus on the relationship between popular culture, identity and politics in the 1980s, including publications on charity singles, music video and the Falklands War. She is academic lead on a new digitisation project 'Observing the Eighties' and co-organiser of a new network 'Subcultures, Popular Music and Social Change'.
Cynthia Weber is Professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex and Co-Director of the media company Pato Productions. Her written work takes a critical feminist/queer lens to questions of sovereignty, intervention, and citizenship, especially in a US context. She also makes documentary films that critically analyse US identity in national and international contexts. She is writing a book called 'Queer IR' and teaching an MA course on the same topic.