I am an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia, where I am also a Faculty Affiliate with the Critical Studies in Sexuality Program. I previously taught at Northwestern University (where I earned my Ph.D. in a sociology and organization behavior joint program) and Princeton University (where I was a postdoctoral fellow in the Society of Fellows).
I study culture, social movements, sexualities, and cities. My publications consider how the militant LGBT movement began (Gay and Lesbian Review 2012, lead article); whether the culture concept is coherent and if political dissent is divisive (American Sociological Review 2011, lead article); how historically changing meanings of sexuality affect collective identity construction in today’s “post-gay” era (Social Problems 2011); the reinvention of heterosexuality (Gay and Lesbian Review 2010); the in-migration of straights into gay neighborhoods (Contexts 2010); the problem of measurement in the study of culture (Theory and Society 2009); and the effects of infighting in LGBT Marches on Washington (award-winning University of Chicago Press book 2008).
The goals of my research are to explain the social organization of sexuality, to account for changes in its cultural meanings over time, and to investigate how those changing meanings in turn reconstitute the social organization of sexuality. The following types of empirical questions motivate my research: What are the effects of infighting in LGBT political organizing? How meaningful is gay identity to younger generations of lesbians and gay men today? What does it mean to be “post-gay?” And how do post-gay activists construct their collective identity? Why do some gay and straight people choose to live in gay neighborhoods, and why do others explicitly reject them in their residential decision-making? To what extent do such spaces remain culturally meaningful? In what ways are gayborhoods similar to and different from ethnic enclaves? How do American and Canadian gay enclaves compare?
Please visit the links above to learn about my scholarship, teaching, and media profile.