Research output per year
Research output per year
Accepting PhD Students
PhD projects
I welcome enquiries from new doctoral research students in any of my areas of interest, which include subjects relating to pornography; sexualisation and mediated sexualities; censorship; audiences; and gendered representations.
My research centres on sexual media and representations. I am interested in the textual formations of pornography and how those play out across different technologies; in how people access and engage with pornographic materials and with other forms of sexualized products. I’m also fascinated by seemingly constant demands for increasing regulation and censorship.
I have written about the problems of attempts to legislate against pornography and have been active in opposing measures which seek to criminalise the imagination. Alongside this work, I have explored porn-star performances, the meanings of masochism in sexual storytelling, the idea of ‘authenticity’ in pornography, and how audiences speak about the sexual content they like.
Recent publications:
Watching Game of Thrones - an examination of audience responses to the HBO series to be published by Manchester University Press and co-authored with Martin Barker and Feona Attwood.
Objectification On the Difference between Sex and Sexism (Gender Insights) will be published by Routledge in August 2020. Authored with Susanna Paasonen, Feona Attwood, Alan McKee, and John Mercer, the book traces the history of the emergence and use of objectification in a variety of contexts such as debates about sexualization and the male gaze, and its mobilization in connection with the body, selfies and pornography, as well as in feminist activism.
I am a founding co-editor of the Routledge journal Porn Studies, a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Gender Studies, of Sexualities, of Cine-Excess and of Participations.
I am co-investigator with Professor John Mercer, Birmingham City University (PI) on the Masculinity, Sex and Popular Culture research network funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The network connects academics, early career researchers and students as well as experts and commentators from outside of academia. Together we will explore the issues and debates around contemporary masculinity, sex and sexuality in order to set an ambitious agenda for subsequent research. You can see what the network is up to at our website https://mascnet.org/
Philosophy, DPhil, One for the Girls: The Practices and Pleasures of Porn For Women, University of Sussex
1 Sept 1998 → 1 Jul 2002
Award Date: 1 Jul 2002
Professor, University of Sunderland
1 Sept 2002 → 3 Jul 2020
Falmouth College of Arts
1 Sept 1997 → 31 Aug 2002
University of the West of England
1 Sept 1994 → 31 Aug 1997
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Research output: Book/Report › Book › peer-review
Clarissa Smith (Speaker)
Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk
Clarissa Smith (Speaker)
Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk
Clarissa Smith (Speaker)
Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk
Clarissa Smith (Chair)
Activity: Participating in or organising an event › Organising a conference, workshop, ...
Clarissa Smith (Speaker)
Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk