Rate My Professor Jordan McKenzie

Dr. Jordan McKenzie is an Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Wollongong, Faculty of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry. He earned his PhD from Flinders University and progressed through roles as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer at the University of Wollongong since 2017, currently serving as Head of Discipline for Sociology. His academic career also includes a position as Lecturer at the University of New England from 2013. McKenzie's research is informed by European social and critical theory, focusing on the sociology of emotions, emotion management, normative dimensions of happiness and the good life, and how emotional experiences reflect modernization and social change. More recently, his work explores future-oriented emotions in contexts of environmental disaster, apocalypse scenarios, prepping, climate anxiety, and dystopia. He leads the Anxious Futures cluster in the Future of Rights Research Centre and is a co-convener of the Social Theory thematic group for The Australian Sociological Association.

Key publications by McKenzie include the books Dystopian Emotions: Emotional Landscapes and Dark Futures (Bristol University Press, 2021) and Deconstructing Happiness: Critical Sociology and the Good Life (Routledge, 2016). Prominent journal articles encompass 'Happiness vs Contentment? A Case for a Sociology of the Good Life' (Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 2016), 'Emotion Management and Solidarity in the Workplace: A Call for a New Research Agenda' (The Sociological Review, 2019), 'Gendered Emotion Management and Teacher Outcomes in Secondary School Teaching: A Review' (Teaching and Teacher Education, 2019), and 'Friendship and Happiness from a Sociological Perspective' (2015). He contributes to teaching courses such as SOC 238 Happiness, SOC 207, and SOC 348, and engages in public commentary on topics including doomsday prepping, social resilience after COVID-19, and societal anxieties. McKenzie's scholarship advances understandings of emotional landscapes in contemporary society, bridging critical theory with empirical analysis of dystopian futures and emotional solidarity.