Faculty Directory

Gender, Sexuality and Sex

Faculty in this area provide students with critical skills, research methods and understanding of humanistic and scientific debates surrounding gender, sexuality and media culture. While faculty interests overlap in this area, there are distinct research traditions and approaches. Faculty research addresses the following:

• the variety of ways in which the scientific method can be applied to test theories about sexual media content, uses and effects
• how gender, sexuality and sex are portrayed in specific areas of mass media (comedy, drama, journalism, sports, video games)
• the ways in which film and media aesthetics are linked to broader cultural, social, political, artistic and economic configurations
• connections between the history of cinema and developments in other media
• how diverse practices have emerged from different national and transnational contexts and periods

In their classes, they encourage students to take advantage of the extensive holdings at the Kinsey Institute, the Moving Image Archive and the Lilly Library, all of which have interesting material on the scientific and critical-cultural history of gender and sexuality. They also house a wide array of films: mainstream Hollywood, avant-garde and experimental, pornography, low-budget indie, documentary, educational and institutional films, queer cinema and international cinema.