Professor Chris Brickell
BA(Hons) PhD(Well)
Much of my research focuses on the connections between sexuality, gender and identity, drawing on sociological and historical approaches. I am continuing to develop my interests in histories of same-sex sexuality and intimacy, and in various aspects of cultural change in postwar New Zealand – especially in terms of gender relations.
Latest Books
Research Projects
This project analyses the relationships between queer New Zealanders, citizenship and the state between 1900 and 2025
Born in Christchurch in 1903, he became aware of his homosexuality during his adolescent years. He moved to London in 1927 and began writing novels, plays, poems and short stories.
This cultural history project investigates the changing nature of New Zealanders’ ‘transition to adulthood’ between 1800 and the 1970s
Research Profile
Much of my research focuses on the connections between sexuality and gender, especially in relation to masculinity and homoeroticism. My other interests include cultural politics, consumer culture, affect, objects, and the history of adolescence. I draw heavily from sociological and cultural history approaches, and from recent scholarship in cultural geography as well. I'm interested in the connections between time, space, subjectivity and social worlds, which is why my work is interdisciplinary. There are fascinating fractures and continuities between these aspects of social life, just as there are between the disciplines that examine them. The links between the personal and the social are also revealing: how do private lives tell about public issues? Photographs, as well as texts, afford us insights into intimate worlds past and present, and I have become more and more interested in the visual.
I serve on the editorial boards of the journals Sexuality and Culture and Journal of the History of Sexuality, and on the Editorial Board of Otago University Press.