Rate My Professor Chris Brickell

Professor Chris Brickell is Professor in Gender Studies in the Sociology, Gender Studies and Criminology programme, School of Social Sciences, University of Otago, where he has held academic appointments since 2001. He holds a BA(Hons) and a PhD from Victoria University of Wellington. Brickell’s research focuses on the connections between sexuality, gender, and identity, drawing on sociological, historical, and geographical approaches. His interests include queer studies, masculinities, histories of same-sex sexuality and intimacy, cultural change in postwar New Zealand, histories of adolescence, affect, identities and space, and visual sociology and history. He currently researches the history of New Plymouth Prison between 1917 and 1952, when it primarily housed men arrested for homosexual offences, exploring popular and professional ideas about sexuality, prisoners’ experiences, and carceral control. Brickell also examines relationships between queerness, performativity, affect, space, and time.

Brickell has published influential books including Mates & Lovers: A History of Gay New Zealand (2008), which won the NZSA E. H. McCormick Best First Book Award in the 2009 Montana New Zealand Book Awards; Teenagers: The Rise of Youth Culture in New Zealand (Auckland University Press, 2017); James Courage Diaries (Otago University Press, 2021); and Robert Lord Diaries (Otago University Press, 2023). Other notable works are Queer Objects (Rutgers University Press) and Exploring Society: Sociology for New Zealand Students (2019). His highly cited journal articles include “Masculinities, Performativity, and Subversion: A Sociological Reappraisal” (Men and Masculinities, 2005) and “The Sociological Construction of Gender and Sexuality” (The Sociological Review, 2006). Recent publications feature “Performativity, Queer Objects and Radical Creativity” (Italian Sociological Review, 2025). At Otago, he teaches courses such as GEND 102 Bodies, Sexualities and Society; GEND 206/306 Gender, Work and Consumer Culture; GEND 207/307 Masculinities; and GEND 401 Debates in Gender and Sexuality. He supervises postgraduate theses on sexuality, gay studies, masculinities, and related topics. Brickell has delivered public lectures, including the Rainbow Archive Project Launch (2026).