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Professor Chris Brickell

Chris Brickell 2 ImageBA(Hons) PhD(Well)

Professor in Gender Studies

Contact details

Room R6C22, Richardson Building
Tel +64 3 479 8184
Email chris.brickell@otago.ac.nz

Much of my research focuses on the connections between sexuality, gender and identity and draws on sociological and historical approaches.

With Judith Collard I recently co-edited Queer Objects, an international collection that explores LGBT material culture. This book was published in late 2019 by Otago, Rutgers and Manchester University Presses. My new book project is an edition of James Courage’s diaries. A wry observer of mid-twentieth century life in New Zealand and England, Courage was the author of A Way of Love, the first gay novel by a New Zealander. The affective qualities of landscapes, travels by ocean liner, life during the Blitz and psychiatric treatment are among his diaries’ themes.

I am also researching the interconnections between male homosexuality, imprisonment and psychology in New Zealand during the twentieth century and I am writing a series of journal articles that explore the history, meaning and politics of same-sex marriage and its wider social context.

Further details of my research projects can be found at www.brickell.co.nz

Courses

GEND 102 Bodies, Sexualities and Selves
GEND 206 / 306 Gender, Work and Consumer Culture
GEND 207 / 307 Masculinities
GEND 401 Debates in Gender and Sexuality

Postgraduate supervision

  • Sexuality
  • Gay studies
  • Masculinity
  • Histories of adolescence
  • Affect, identities and space
  • Visual sociology and visual history

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Publications

Brickell, C., & Collard, J. (Eds.). (2019). Queer objects. Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago University Press, 416p.

Brickell, C. (2017). Teenagers: The rise of youth culture in New Zealand. Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press, 384p.

Brickell, C. (2008). Mates & lovers: A history of gay New Zealand. Auckland, New Zealand: Random House, 430p.

Brickell, C. (2020). Josie and Florence: A same-sex marriage at the turn of the twentieth century. New Zealand Journal of History, 54(1), 29-48.

Brickell, C. (2020). A short history of same-sex marriage in New Zealand. Sexualities, 23(8), 1417-1433. doi: 10.1177/1363460720902713

Brickell, C., & Collard, J. (Eds.). (2019). Queer objects. Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago University Press, 416p.

Edited Book - Research

Brickell, C. (2017). Teenagers: The rise of youth culture in New Zealand. Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press, 384p.

Authored Book - Research

Brickell, C. (2008). Mates & lovers: A history of gay New Zealand. Auckland, New Zealand: Random House, 430p.

Authored Book - Research

Brickell, C. (2020). Josie and Florence: A same-sex marriage at the turn of the twentieth century. New Zealand Journal of History, 54(1), 29-48.

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2020). A short history of same-sex marriage in New Zealand. Sexualities, 23(8), 1417-1433. doi: 10.1177/1363460720902713

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2013). Southern men: Gay lives in pictures. Dunedin, New Zealand: Genre Books, 227p.

Authored Book - Research

Brickell, C. (2012). Manly affections: The photographs of Robert Gant, 1885-1915. Dunedin, New Zealand: Genre Books, 207p.

Authored Book - Research

Brickell, C., & Gilmour, F. (2019). The dialectics of motherhood in 1950s New Zealand. Journal of Family History, 44(4), 413-430. doi: 10.1177/0363199019855107

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C., Gorman-Murray, A., & de Jong, A. (2018). Queer trans-Tasman mobility, then and now. Australian Geographer, 49(1), 167-184. doi: 10.1080/00049182.2017.1345294

Journal - Research Article

Gorman-Murray, A., & Brickell, C. (2017). Over the Ditch: Queer mobilities at the nexus of art, geography and history. ACME, 16(3), 576-604. Retrieved from https://www.acme-journal.org

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2016). Friendship, intimacy and desire in young New Zealanders' diaries, 1880-1940. New Zealand Journal of History, 50(1), 69-87.

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2015). Networks of affect, male homoeroticism and the Second World War: A soldier’s archive. Social & Cultural Geography, 16(2), 183-202. doi: 10.1080/14649365.2014.969764

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2015). Histories of adolescence and affect: Setting an agenda. History Compass, 13(8), 385-395. doi: 10.1111/hic3.12249

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2015). Sex, symbolic interactionism, and social constructionism. In T. S. Weinberg & S. Newmahr (Eds.), Selves, symbols, and sexualities: An interactionist anthology. (pp. 5-16). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.

Chapter in Book - Research

Brickell, C. (2014). Sensation and the making of New Zealand adolescence. Journal of Social History, 47(4), 994-1020.

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2014). Affect and the history of masculinities. Qualitative Research, 14(1), 28-40. doi: 10.1108/QRJ-03-2014-0005

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C., Tolich, M., & Scarth, B. (2014). Sociology before sociology at Otago University. New Zealand Sociology, 29(4), 27-44.

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2013). On the case of youth: Case files, case studies, and the social construction of adolescence. Journal of the History of Childhood & Youth, 6(1), 50-80. doi: 10.1353/hcy.2013.0006

Journal - Research Article

Stock, P. V., & Brickell, C. (2013). Nature's good for you: Sir Truby King, Seacliff Asylum and the greening of health care in New Zealand, 1889–1922. Health & Place, 22, 107-114. doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2013.03.002

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2013). The teenager and the social scientist. New Zealand Sociology, 28(1), 36-61.

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2012). Queens Gardens, 1949: The anxious spaces of post-war New Zealand masculinity. New Zealand Geographer, 68(2), 81-91. doi: 10.1111/j.1745-7939.2012.01231.x

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2012). “Waiting for Uncle Ben”: Age-structured homosexuality in New Zealand, 1920–1950. Journal of the History of Sexuality, 21(3), 467-495. doi: 10.7560/JHS21304

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2012). Sexuality, power and the sociology of the internet. Current Sociology, 60(1), 28-44. doi: 10.1177/0011392111426646

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2012). Men alone, men entwined: Reconsidering colonial masculinity. Journal of New Zealand Studies, 13, 11-33.

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2012). Moral panic or critical mass? The queer contradictions of 1950s New Zealand. In H. Bauer & M. Cook (Eds.), Queer 1950s: Rethinking sexuality in the postwar years. (pp. 94-114). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Chapter in Book - Research

Brickell, C. (2011). Homoerotic subjectivities and the historical imagination. Gay & Lesbian Issues & Psychology Review, 7(2), 89-101.

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2010). Sex, space and scripts: Negotiating homoeroticism in history. Social & Cultural Geography, 11(6), 597-613. doi: 10.1080/14649365.2010.497911

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2010). Visualizing homoeroticism: The photographs of Robert Gant, 1887-1892. Visual Anthropology, 23(2), 136-157. doi: 10.1080/08949460903475492

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2010). Soldier to civilian: Army education and postwar New Zealand citizenship. History of Education, 39(3), 363-382. doi: 10.1080/00467600903164559

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2010). Nouvelle-Zélande: Jeunesse et homosexualité dans l'immèdiat après-guerre. In V. Blanchard, R. Revenin & J.-J. Yvorel (Eds.), Les jeunes et la sexualité: Initiations, interdits, identités (XXIe-XXIe siècle). (pp. 352-362). Paris: Autrement.

Chapter in Book - Research

Brickell, C. (2009). Sexuality and the dimensions of power. Sexuality & Culture, 13(2), 57-74. doi: 10.1007/s12119-008-9042-x

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2009). Sexuality, morality and society. In G. Byrnes (Ed.), The new Oxford history of New Zealand. (pp. 465-486). Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press.

Chapter in Book - Research

Brickell, C. (2008). Court records and the history of male homosexuality. Archifacts, (October), 25-44.

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2007). Sex education, homosexuality, and social contestation in 1970s New Zealand. Sex Education, 7(4), 387-406.

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2007). Those ″other sociologists″: Social analysis before sociology. New Zealand Sociology, 22(2), 195-218.

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2006). The sociological construction of gender and sexuality. Sociological Review, 54(1), 87-113.

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2006). A symbolic interactionist history of sexuality? Rethinking History, 10(3), 415-432.

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2006). The politics of post-war consumer culture. New Zealand Journal of History, 40(2), 133-155.

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2006). Sexology, the homo/hetero binary, and the complexities of male sexual history. Sexualities, 9(4), 423-447.

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2005). Masculinities, performativity, and subversion: A sociological reappraisal. Men & Masculinities, 8(1), 24-43.

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2005). Same-sex desire and the asylum: A colonial experience. New Zealand Journal of History, 39(2), 158-178.

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2005). Sex instruction and the construction of homosexuality in New Zealand, 1920-1965. Sex Education, 5(2), 119-136.

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C., & Collard, J. (2019). The queerness of objects. In C. Brickell & J. Collard (Eds.), Queer objects. (pp. 11-21). Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago University Press.

Chapter in Book - Research

Brickell, C. (2019). Transport cultures and young people’s histories in New Zealand, 1880–1950. Journal of Historical Geography, 63, 2-11. doi: 10.1016/j.jhg.2018.08.002

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2018). Historical research: Pulling together a history of New Zealand's teenagers. In M. Tolich & C. Davidson (Eds.), Social science research in New Zealand: An introduction. (pp. 259-268). Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press.

Chapter in Book - Research

Bennett, J. E., & Brickell, C. (2018). Surveilling the mind and body: Medicalising and de-medicalising homosexuality in 1970s New Zealand. Medical History, 62(2), 199-216. doi: 10.1017/mdh.2018.4

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2018). Unpublished post-war writing and emergent gay cultures. Journal of New Zealand Studies, 26, 18-33. doi: 10.26686/jnzs.v0iNS26.4839

Journal - Research Article

Brickell, C. (2017). Theorising power online. In E. Martellozzo & E. A. Jane (Eds.), Cybercrime and its victims. (pp. 43-59). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Chapter in Book - Research

Brickell, C., & Wanhalla, A. (2016). Editorial Introduction: Writing New Zealand's sexual histories. New Zealand Journal of History, 50(1), 3-12. [Editorial].

Journal - Research Other

Brickell, C. (2015). 'Badness personified': Nola Pratt's photograph album. In A. Cooper, L. Paterson & A. Wanhalla (Eds.), The lives of colonial objects. (pp. 262-267). Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago University Press.

Chapter in Book - Research

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