Sexuality, Age and Power
...an understanding of virtually any aspect of modern Western culture must be, not merely incomplete, but damaged in its central substance to the degree that it does not incorporate an analysis of modern homo/heterosexual definition. |
Sex and sexuality are central features of human life, knowledge, and social organisation. Intimately interconnected with the study of gender and other categories and axes of social production and analysis, the exploration of sexual practices, identities, subjectivities, and meanings is an important aspect of research carried out in the Centre. Sexuality, Age and Power encompasses projects aimed at exploring inter/generational relations and age stratified constructions and formations of sexuality as these are constituted through multidimensional networks and relations of power.
For further information on these projects, follow the links below or contact the first named chief investigators listed.
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Moral Panics and Child Sexualisation
Researcher: Steven Angelides -
Scandalous Liaisons: Teacher-Student Sex
Researcher: Steven Angelides -
Sex and Relationships Education: A Healthy Subject?
Researchers: Steven Angelides, Mindy Blaise, Mary Lou Rasmussen -
Michael Field, Literary Cross-dressing, and the Production of Authorship.
Researcher: Sharon Bickle
 Steven Angelides |
As Foucault famously declared, sexuality is 'an especially dense transfer point for relations of power'. One of the things I take this to mean is that sexuality is not simply a matter of individual preference or orientation, but is a site at which both the individual and the social are co-constructed. In other words, an individual's desires, pleasures, identities, and subjectivity are never simply one's own, but are always mediated and tied up with broader social meanings and relations of power. For me, this makes sexuality a fascinating area of research, as it provides a lens through which to explore almost any aspect of human life, knowledge, culture, and society. |