Newcastle University

Background

Gareth Longstaff’s teaching and research interests are primarily concerned with sexuality, celebrity, television, identity/identifications, psychoanalysis and visual culture. He works at the intersection of how these are connected to other dimensions of cultural, philosophical, mediated and social life. Gareth is near completion of his doctoral thesis which closely engages with Lacanian psychoanalysis to examine the impersonality of desire and the mediated screening of the male (homo)sexual subject in contemporary online, pornographic and photographic representation.

Much of his current research is based around these concerns and his most recent project which was an archival commission for The BFI and Channel 4. This focussed on the documentation and analysis of LGBT televisual output during the 1980’s and 90’s in the UK. Recent papers include ‘Sex(uality) and the screening of the subject, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Homosexuation and Contemporary ‘Male’ Desire’, University of the Arts, ‘Are we all Out on Tuesday? The significance and Legacy of Channel 4’s OUT and Out on Tuesday’, The National Film Theatre, London and ‘Theorising Queer – Psychoanalysis: Pre or Post Queer?’ – Queer in Europe Conference, University of Exeter.

He has recently published reviews in Participations: The online Journal of Audience & Reception Studies and The Journal of Media, Culture and Society, as well as the publication of five key headword entries in The Encyclopedia of Gender and Society (SAGE): These are academic entries intended for an international audience on Camp, Cross-dressing, Diaries, Feminist Magazines, and Primetime Drama (2009)  Forthcoming Book Chapters and Journal articles include (Im)Personal Desires: Gay Porn Websites and the Mediation of celebrity Homo/Hetero Sexual Representation in The Journal of Celebrity Studies: Sex and the Celebrity (2012).

He was co-organiser of Theorising Queer Visualities at The University of Manchester, and is convener of the Identities and Identifications Post-Graduate Discussion Group, Newcastle University. He is a Member of ‘Queer(y)ing Psychology’ – a critical discussion group engaged with queer theories and methodologies and also a features writer and columnist for several contemporary magazine publications (Gay Times, OUT, iD), he also writes his own monthly queer column in The Crack Magazine.

My key research interests are concerned with sexuality, masculinity, celebrity, pornography, identity/identifications, psychoanalysis and cultural theory. I work at the intersection of how these paradigms are connected to other dimensions of visual, cultural and social discourse. My doctoral thesis closely engages with queer theory and Lacanian psychoanalysis to examine the impersonality of desire and the mediated screening of the male hetero and homo sexual subject in contemporary online, pornographic and photographic representation.

Throughout my part-time program of study I have attempted to broaden the scope, and disseminate key elements of my research and I currently have an article ‘From Reality to Fantasy: Gay celebrity, pornography, and representation’ due for publication in late 2012 in The Journal of Celebrity Studies: Sex and the Celebrity (Routledge). I am also a guest editor for a special edition of ‘Networking Knowledge’ the MeCCSA Post-graduate journal due to publication in February 2013. This is an edition proposed by myself around the themes of '(Im)personal desires: Pornography, Sexuality and Social Networks of Desire'. I am also working on a two book chapter for  edited collections and an article for The Journal for Gender Studies examining gay masculinity and authenticating discourses of the self in British pornography.

Recent presentation papers include ‘Sex(uality) and the screening of the subject, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Homosexuation and Contemporary ‘Male Desire’, University of the Arts, ‘Theorising Queer – Psychoanalysis: Pre or Post Queer?’ – Queer in Europe Conference, University of Exeter. I have recently published book reviews in Participations: The online Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, The Journal of Media, Culture and Society (Sage) and the Journal of Psychology and Sexuality (Routledge) as well as the publication of five key headword entries in The Encyclopedia of Gender and Society (Sage): These are co-authored academic entries intended for an international audience on Camp, Cross-dressing, Diaries, Feminist Magazines, and Primetime Drama. I also anticipate that several of the sections of the PhD will be reworked into chapters and potentially a monograph on successful completion.

Undergraduate Teaching

Introduction to Media Studies

Introduction to Social and Cultural Studies

Themes and Issues in Media, Culture and Communication

Psychoanalysis and Emotion

Celebrity Culture

Dissertation Supervision

Postgraduate Teaching

Media Analysis

Dissertation Supervision