Ann Brooks

Biography

Professor Ann Brooks is author of thirteen  books and many peer reviewed journal articles. Her books include: Academic Women (Open University Press, 1997); Postfeminisms: Feminism, Cultural Theory and Cultural Forms (Routledge, 1997); Gendered Work in Asian Cities: The New Economy and Changing Labour Markets (Ashgate, 2006) and Gender and the Restructured University: Changing Management and Culture in Higher Education (with Alison Mackinnon) (Open University Press, 2001); Social Theory in Contemporary Asia (Routledge, 2010); Gender, Emotions and Labour Markets (Routledge, 2011); and Emotions in Transmigration: Transformation, Movement and Identity (Palgrave, 2012) (with Ruth Simpson). Her latest books are: Emotions and Social Change. Historical and Sociological Perspectives (co-edited with David Lemmings) (Routledge, New York 2014); Popular Culture, Global Intercultural Perspectives (Palgrave, Macmillan 2014); Consumption, Cities and States: Comparing Singapore with Asian and Western Cities (with Lionel Wee) (Anthem Publishers, 2014). Recent books  include: Genealogies of Emotions, Intimacy and Desire: Theories of Changes in Emotional Regimes from Medieval Society to Late Modernity (Routledge New York, 2017), Latest books include Women, Politics and the Public Sphere (Policy Press, 2019) and Love and Intimacy in Contemporary Society: Love in an International Context (Routledge, 2019).

Areas of Research / Professional Expertise

Professor Ann Brooks is a full term International Investigator with the Australia Research Council funded Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions for the duration of the grant 2011-2019

http://www.historyofemotions.org.au/research/researchers/ann-brooks.aspx

Recent and Continuing Research and Publications
Ann’s most recent books are:

Love and Intimacy in Contemporary Society : Love in an International Context (Routledge, 2019)

And

Women, Politics and the Public Sphere (Policy Press, 2019)

Emotions and Social Change: Historical and Sociological Perspectives (Routledge, New York 2014) was published in 2014 and is a collection of scholarly essays co-edited by David Lemmings and Ann Brooks. It takes a critical perspective on Norbert Elias's (1939) theory of the 'civilizing process', outlined in his book The Civilizing Process (revd. edn., 2000). The collection focuses on changes in emotional regimes, concentrating particularly on the history of emotional styles and historical change. It includes historical essays, as well as contributions from sociologists and cultural theorists (for example Ann Brooks, Robert Van Krieken and Bryan Turner) discussing alternative theoretical models and interpretations of emotional change in history to those of Elias. The book provides an analysis of the intersection of historical and sociological perspectives on change in emotional regimes and specifically examines the relationship between emotional styles and historical change against the context of Elias's model of the history of emotions. The papers in the collection provide a wide range of classical and contemporary analyses of concepts around emotions and engagement with debates concerning different aspects of emotion, emotional communities, the histories of contested emotions, the modern politics of emotions, and violence and emotions. Ann’s chapter is entitled: ‘“The Affective Turn” in the Social Sciences and the Gendered Nature of  Emotions : Theorizing Emotions in the Social Sciences from 1800 to the Present’. She has also written the introductory chapter with David Lemmings entitled: ‘The Emotional Turn in the Humanities and Social Sciences.’

Ann  published  Genealogies of Emotion, Intimacy and Desire: Theories of Changes in Emotional Regimes from Medieval Society to Late Modernity (Routledge 2017) which draws on the concept of genealogies from Michel Foucault and the historical perspectives of intimacy and colonialism in the work of the historical anthropologist Laura Ann Stoler. She looks at intimacy as a driver of emotions and combines contemporary feminist analyses of emotions with a range of contemporary theoretical analyses including Foucault, Stoler, McClintock, Elias, Illouz, Nussbaum, Giddens, Beck and Beck-Gernsheim. The research on the sociology of emotions is part of the 'turn to affect' in the social sciences and feminist theory, it is part of a broader emphasis on the 'emotionalisation of society' and the perceived growth in the range and intensity of emotions and emotional expressions in the public sphere.

Personal Interests

Travel and living overseas
Interior Design
Vintage
Writing novels

Books