Editors & Contributors

Editors:

Amanda Kennedy is a PhD candidate at Stony Brook University (SUNY). Her BA is in women’s studies and feminist science and technology studies from the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University. Her main areas of interest are race, gender, sexuality, and the body, issues she approaches from a critical race/postcolonial feminist perspective. Her dissertation focuses on the “intactivist” movement in the United States—through interviews and content analysis of organizational materials, she is exploring the gender dynamics of a movement aimed at ending male circumcision. She is also actively studying feminist engagements with pornography. She teaches courses on race/gender/sexuality, media and technology. She has been a teaching assistant as well as managing editor for the Men & Masculinities journal.

Cheryl Llewellyn is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at Stony Brook University. Her research addresses disparities in immigration policies, particularly asylum and refugee status, across gender, sexuality, race, and nationality. Her most recent publication in the Journal of Homosexuality describes the barriers for gender conforming gay men who apply for sexual orientation based asylum. She previously served as the managing editor for Men and Masculinities and looks forward to continuing to contribute to the field.

Cliff Leek is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at Stony Brook University (SUNY).  He has a BA in US Race and Gender Studies from Willamette University and has worked as Prevention Specialist for the Oregon Attorney General’s Sexual Assault Task Force.  His primary research interests are non-governmental organizations (NGOs), violence prevention, race, and gender (with particular attention to the intersections of whiteness and masculinity).  He is currently engaged in an ongoing project investigating the growth patterns and effectiveness of NGOs seeking to engage men and boys in the prevention of gendered violence around the world.  Cliff also serves as a Research Assistant to TrueChild, a policy-oriented non-profit organization working for gender equity, and as a Program Coordinator for Stony Brook University’s new Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities.  You can also find Cliff on twitter () and read more from him at Sociology Lens.

Markus Gerke is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at Stony Brook University (SUNY), working primarily on issues of race, class and gender, and masculinities more specifically. He completed his undergraduate work at Georg-August University in Göttingen, Germany, and is also in the process of finishing a Master’s degree at York University in Toronto. His MA thesis deals with constructions of (white middle-class) masculinity in newspaper articles about the so-called ‘boys crisis in education’. In addition to issues of gender and education, his work also explores the intersections of whiteness and masculinity in right-wing politics in the US and Germany, as well as the intersections of masculinity and sports. You can follow Markus on twitter () and read more from him at Sociology Lens.

Tara Fannon is a PhD student at NUI, Galway. She received her MA in sociology at University College Dublin. Her main research interests are gender, disability and the body-self connection. Her dissertation research uses feminist disability theory to investigate narrative accounts of identity and diversity- specifically the ways in which blind and visually impaired men claim, contest and adapt dominant masculinity and disability narratives to construct a sense of self. Tara teaches courses on contemporary society and sociology of health and medicine. She’s the acting newsletter editor of the Disabilities Division of SSSP and occasionally contributes to Metro Eireann, Thesis Talk, Endangered Bodies Ireland and Endangered Bodies NYC where she served as a board member and Chief Blog Editor. She’s on Tumblr @  (where she enjoys posting a photo or two).

Clay Darcy is a PhD candidate in the School of Sociology, University College Dublin (UCD), and a Lecturer in Sociology of Childhood at St. Nicholas Montessori College, Ireland.  His PhD research explores Irish men’s recreational use of illicit drugs and how this may relate to their construct of masculinity.  Clay currently works as a specialist youth worker designing and delivering drug education and prevention programmes.  He is the Post Graduate Student Representative on the Executive Committee of the Sociological Association of Ireland.  Clay holds a Master of Social Science (Major in Sociology) from UCD and degrees in Art & Design Education and Human Resource Management.  Clay is on Twitter . You can find out more about Clay at www.irishsociologyblog.com and www.claydarcy.com.

Contributors:

Andrew Morrison-Gurza is a Disability Awareness Consultant with an MA of Legal Studies from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, specializing in Persons with Disabilities.  Andrew’s passion is “making disability accessible to everyone.”  In his work, he highlights the lived experience of Persons with Disabilities to show that disability is a universal experience we can all embrace.  Within the LGBTQ+ community, Andrew works to deconstruct our homo-normative, body beautiful ideals and show that Queers with Disabilities deserve representation.  Andrew is a featured blogger for Huffington Post Gay Voices and has been featured on MTV Canada’s, “1 Girl, 5 Gays” representing Persons with Disability. To find out more, and book Andrew for opportunities to make disability accessible to you, please visit: andrewmorrisongurza.com or tweet him

michael alarid is currently a Doctoral Candidate in Rhetoric & Professional Communication at New Mexico State University. his academic interests and work have been primarily in identity theory, gender identity, feminism, critical cultural studies, composition, and masculinity. he has a background in leadership, management, human resources, and teaching at the collegiate level. he’s a student by day, a business-owner (editing & professional documentation services) by night, and mad theorist at all times.

Jonathan Grove serves as the Men Against Violence Program Coordinator at the Pacific Lutheran University Women’s Center in Tacoma WA. In this role, he oversees the education, prevention, and male engagement efforts of the Voices Against Violence project. Thanks to three amazing women mentors, Jonathan has been involved in survivor support and engaging men in gender violence response and prevention since 2002.  Under his direction, the PLU Men Against Violence Program has emerged as a leading voice on strategies to engage college men as allies in ending violence against women.  One of few men with experience working with male groups to address violence prevention, Jonathan invests in sharing his knowledge and experience to increase the number and success of such efforts around the country. He currently co-chairs the PLU Green Dot Coalition and serves on the Women’s Center Advisory Board. Beyond PLU, he serves on the YWCA of Pierce County Board of Directors, the Washington Sexual Violence Prevention College Coalition Steering Committee, writes, and speaks around the country.

Tal Peretz, a doctoral candidate in sociology and gender studies at the University of Southern California, endeavors in his research and activism to engage men in ending sexism. His scholarship on men, masculinities, and feminism has been published in Men and Masculinities, edited volumes, and popular and activist/professional newsletters. For the past decade he has volunteered with domestic violence shelters, rape crisis hotlines, and men’s groups working to end sexual violence and promote healthy masculinities. His dissertation uses intersectionality and social formation theories to investigate how social location affects Black, Muslim, and gay/queer men’s gender justice groups.

Brent Strang is an M.A. in Film Studies and PhD student with a Women’s and Gender Studies certificate in Stony Brook’s Cultural Analysis and Theory program. His research interests include: masculinities in American cinema/television, intermedial literacy in videogames/machinima, the gendering of objects/spaces, and biomediated vision & technologized affect. He has presented papers on ‘frontier masculinity’ and intermedial literacy at several FSAC, SCMS, and MEA conferences. He has published in Cinephile 5.1 & 5.2 as well as the online journal Invisible Culture. His article on the ‘Disinterred Western’ is a chapter in Ghost Riders: The (Cowboy) Western and World Cinema submitted for review with Routledge. He has been cited in Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, for his views on the contemporary Western.

Anthony J. Williams is a proud Black queer man, a recent sociology graduate from the University of California–Berkeley, and a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow. He uses Twitter, writing, scholarship, and theatre as a tool for consciousness raising around interlocking systems of oppression. As a writer and researcher, he has been published in The Independent, Black Girl Dangerous, and the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Journal. Anthony is also the Editor-in-Chief and Prison Divestment Communications Director for the Afrikan Black Coalition and a research assistant at the University of California–Berkeley.

Kolbe Franklin is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University at Albany-SUNY where she teaches classes on gender and sexuality. Her research interests include gender identity, transgender experiences, and lesbian identity development. She is currently working on her dissertation entitled, “Queering Sexual Development Frameworks: A Dynamic Systems Approach to Conceptualizing Other-Sex Sexuality Among Lesbians.” Kolbe holds a B.A in International Studies from Middlebury College and an M.A. in Women’s Studies from the University at Albany-SUNY.