Jonathan Dean

I am a lecturer in politics with specialisms in three main inter-related areas: feminism and gender, critical theory, and left-wing politics in contemporary Britain.

I took up my post in Leeds in 2010 after having previously held posts at the London School of Economics (Gender Institute) and the University of Essex (where I completed my PhD in 2007).

My current main research project is a gender analysis of contemporary left-wing politics in Britain, focussing on the different ways in which feminism is understood and addressed by various strands of the British left. I am undertaking the research in collaboration with Bice Maiguashca from the University of Exeter, and our project is funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme Small Grants Scheme.

Prior to that, I undertook research into representations of the recent history of left and radical politics (focussing on the UK), examining competing characterisations of the trajectory of post-1968 activism and radicalism in activist, academic and media discourse. Further back, my doctoral and post-doctoral research – published in 2010 by Palgrave Macmillan as a monograph entitled Rethinking Contemporary Feminist Politics – examined new forms of feminist politics and activism in the UK, informed by an analysis of various strands of feminist and poststructuralist political theory.

Indeed, all my research is rooted in a longstanding interest in a range of theoretical debates encompassing feminism, Marxism and post-marxism, intersectionality and critical race theory, poststructuralism and deconstruction, psychoanalysis, queer theory, and the “affective turn”.