Research
I am interested in the way in which self-governance interacts with formal governance such as law. I have two projects going. The first is about anxiety; the focus is on the way in which we are “governed through anxiety”, both our own anxieties and those that are induced by medical, legal and other authorities. The second is about the governance of sex and sexuality; it is concerned to understand why the issue of the ‘age of consent’ is again on the legal and political agenda.
Teaching interests
Social and legal theory; governmentality; the regulation of consumption and sexuality.
Selected publications
“A Genealogy of the Genital Kiss: Oral Sex in the Twentieth Century” (with Bruce Curtis) 15:2 Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality 69-84 (2006).
” Police and the Regulation of Traffic: Policing as a Civilizing Process?” in Markus Dubber and Mariana Valverde (eds.) The New Police Science: Police Powers in Comparative Perspective Stanford University Press: Stanford, 2006, pp.168-84.
“Getting Marx and Foucault into Bed Together!” 31:4 Jnl. of Law and Society 592-609 (December 2004).
Governing Morals: A Social History of Moral Regulation Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999.
Governance of the Consuming Passions: A History of Sumptuary Regulation Macmillan, London, 1996.
Foucault and Law: Towards a New Sociology of Law as Governance (with Gary Wickham) Westview Press, Boulder, Co., 1994.