Jonathan Dollimore
Jonathan Dollimore | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1948 |
| Occupation(s) | Sociologist and academic |
Jonathan Dollimore (born 1948) is a British sociologist and social theorist in the fields of Renaissance literature (especially drama), gender studies, queer theory (queer studies), art, censorship, history of ideas, death studies, decadence, and cultural theory. He received his BA from Keele University and his PhD from the University of London.
Academic background
With Alan Sinfield, he co-founded the Sexual Dissidence and Cultural Change MA in English at the University of Sussex, one of the few humanities-based graduate programs of its kind. This makes it a high profile and competitive program that attracts students from around the world.
Dollimore was Reader in the School of English and American Studies and currently an associate member of the Centre for the Study of Sexual Dissidence, University of Sussex. He is also a Professor of English and Related Literature at the University of York. Dollimore is credited with making major interventions in debates on sexuality and desire; Renaissance literary culture; art and censorship, and; cultural theory.
After leaving school at fifteen with no formal education to speak of, he worked in a car factory, in farming, and journalism before going to university as a mature student. His first degree was in English with Philosophy. Both subjects have remained central to his range of interests which include renaissance literature, especially drama; gender studies, especially homosexuality and bisexuality; the history of ideas, especially the philosophical preoccupation with decadence and death in western culture; the history of criticism, especially new historicism and cultural materialism.
His is currently Honorary Professor at the University of Sussex and Honorary Research Fellow at Royal Holloway College, University of London. Prior to this he was a Professor in the Humanities Research Centre at Sussex, and Professor English, University of York. He has also been visiting fellow at the Humanities Research Centre, Canberra, Australia, 1988; Mellon fellow at the National Humanities Center, North Carolina, USA 1988-89; scholar in Residence, Centre for Renaissance and Baroque Studies, Maryland University, USA, 1991-2; Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa Visiting Fellow, July 1996; Visiting Professor at the University of British Columbia, 1997;Cohen-Porter Visiting Professor, University of Tel Aviv, 2002; Selfridge Lecturer in Philosophy, LeHigh University, 2002.
He has a PhD from London University.
His recent work has been explored in an article by Ewan Fernie called "Dollimore's Challenge". It first appeared in Shakespeare Studies and is now available via the internet.
Selected publications
- Radical Tragedy: Religion, Ideology and Power in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries (1984) ISBN 978-1403904782
- Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault (1991) ISBN 978-0198112693
- Death, Desire and Loss in Western Culture (1998)
- Sex, Literature, and Censorship (2001).
External links
- 1948 births
- Living people
- Academics of the University of Sussex
- Academics of the University of York
- Alumni of Keele University
- Alumni of the University of London
- British academics
- British sociologists
- English literary critics
- Literary critics of English
- LGBT rights activists from the United Kingdom
- Queer theory