Beasley, Christine, Dr.

By Stine Adrian on 20 Jul | 0 comments

Christine Beasley is Associate Professor, Politics, University of Adelaide, Australia

Proposed Visit: 10 April—3 May 2009

CURRENT PROJECTS
Chris has three main areas of research interest at present, which include ethics (especially global ethics), culture (especially film) and gender/sexuality (theory in particular, but also as a mode of analysis within the other two areas mentioned).

In the area of ethics, she has been particularly concerned with vocabularies regarding social interconnection which aim to challenge the atomistic individualism associated with neo-liberalism. In relation to cultural analysis she is presently writing a book, titled The Cultural Politics of Popular Film: Power, Culture & Society, which considers thematic regularities in relation to contemporary Hollywood films.

However, her overarching interest is gender/sexuality theory and here she has recently been engaged in offering a critical perspective on the relationship between the three major subfields of gender/sexuality thinking, ie feminist, sexuality and masculinity studies. Such a perspective arises out of her most recent book Gender & Sexuality: Critical Theories, Critical Thinkers, in which she offers an argument about how to analyse the gender/sexuality field and its subfields. This perspective is also linked to her current work on a co- authored book, titled Adventures in Heterosexuality: Theory and Practice. Her research project during the visit will be focused upon relations between gender and sexuality and is best described as, ‘Directions in the study of men and masculinities: re-considering heterosexuality and pleasure’.

Biographical notes
Dr Chris Beasley is Associate Professor/Reader in Politics at the University of Adelaide in South Australia. Established in 1874, the University of Adelaide is the third oldest university in Australia. Within the Politics Department Dr Beasley has primarily taught in three areas of Political Studies—social and political theory, gender and sexuality studies, and cultural politics (particularly the cultural politics of film). Prior to her position in the discipline of Politics, Dr Beasley has been located in Sociology, Women's Studies, Aboriginal Studies and Education. Her most recent books include Gender and Sexuality: Critical Theories, Critical Thinkers (Sage, 2005) and What is Feminism? (Sage, 1999).

She is currently in the process of working on two books, one concerned with the cultural politics of popular contemporary film, and the other a co-authored book on heterosexuality. She is also continuing joint research with Professor Carol Bacchi on global ethics, undertaking a joint research project on cultural globalisation and national identity involving investigating the views of young Australians, and developing a joint project concerned with the comparative study (Sweden and Australia) of hegemonic masculinities with Drs Roger Klinth and Murray Drummond.