2022 Hunt-Simes Visiting Chair of Sexuality Studies announced

Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre (SSSHARC) is proud to announce the recipients of the 2022 Hunt-Simes Visiting Chair of Sexuality Studies.

In 2022, SSSHARC will welcome Professor Susanna Paasonen (U Turku, Finland), Professor Jen Gilbert (York U, Canada), and Associate Professor Srila Roy (Wits U, South Africa) to conduct research activities in the area broadly defined as Sexuality Studies and including LGBTQI studies, queer studies, trans studies and their cognate fields.

Supported by a bequest from the late Dr Gary Simes (BA ’73, PhD ’79) – a linguistic historian, biographer and University of Sydney graduate – the Hunt-Simes Visiting Chair of Sexuality Studies enables international scholars to travel to Sydney to collaborate with University of Sydney researchers for up to two months. 

In addition to the Chair, the bequest also contributed highly valuable rare books on sexology and sexuality, and funding for book and research resource acquisitions in the same academic area, to the University Library.

SSSHARC has a long history of supporting visiting scholars to participate in the research culture of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Contributions include, but are not limited to, collaborating with researchers, presenting talks, seminars, guest lectures and hosting master classes for emerging and early career researchers.

Professor Jen Gilbert

Professor Gilbert will visit SSSHARC to collaborate with Dr Victoria Rawlings and Dr Kellie Burns on the development of an international network of interdisciplinary sexuality education researchers.

Professor Susanna Paasonen

Professor Paasonen will visit SSSHARC to work on intimacy, sexual expression and platform governance in social media with Professor Kane Race.

Associate Professor Srila Roy

Associate Professor Roy will visit SSSHARC to work on bringing an analytical frame to the politics of gender and sexuality in the Global South, with Dr Shawna Tang, Professor Adam Morton and Associate Professor Elizabeth Hill. This collaboration will further her research into postcolonial sexualities, intimacy and sexual politics across India and Southern Africa, whilst contributing to the research culture of SSHARC in distinctively transnational and comparative ways.

Further events relating to the arrival of SSSHARC’s visitors will be announced in early 2022.