Professor Jeff Hearn co-edits three new international sociology collections

The University of Huddersfield’s Professor Jeff Hearn has been reflecting on a busy period where he has leant his expertise on studying masculinity, men’s violence, feminism, and gender studies to three important new books.

Professor of Sociology at the University since 2003, Professor Hearn has co-edited three new resource texts that take a truly international view of their subjects.

Published by Routledge, they are:

• Routledge Handbook on Men, Masculinities and Organizations: Theories, Practices and Futures of Organizing (Jeff Hearn, Kadri Aavik, David L. Collinson and Anika Thym)
• Interconnecting the Violences of Men: Continuities and Intersections in Research, Policy and Activism (Kate Seymour, Bob Pease, Sofia Strid and Jeff Hearn)
• Routledge International Handbook of Feminisms and Gender Studies: Convergences, Divergences and Pluralities (Anália Torres, Paula Pinto, Tamara Shefer and Jeff Hearn)

"I have been in academia since 1974, working on the issues covered in these books for pretty much all of that time," says Professor Hearn.

"I've also worked alongside some fantastic colleagues from institutions all around the world, some of whom I've not even met. They way we can work and collaborate now meant that these collections, which I have helped to edit, could lend a truly international aspect to some important discussions."

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Men, Masculinities and Organizations stems from Professor Hearn’s interest in studying how organisations work, and he says, “I co-authored the well-cited article called ‘Naming men as men: Implications for work, organisations and management’ in 1994, and now as then you cannot help but notice that in many organisations, management is dominated by men. That has changed a bit since, but we have gathered different approaches to the question of men and masculinities in organisations such as corporations, higher education, sports organisations and even the military. 

Interconnecting the Violences of Men considers different aspects of men’s violence, including the rise of online violence in addition to more established research into violences committed in public or domestically.

“Research, like policy, can sometimes be conducted in silos but we wanted to consider different kinds of violence and how they actually do interconnect despite some common misconceptions that they are more separate.”

The Routledge International Handbook of Feminisms and Gender Studies assesses historical and current debates on feminist, gender, and women’s studies from a global perspective.

“A number of years ago I was involved in establishing the International Research Association of Institutions of Advanced Gender Studies, also known as RINGS,” adds Professor Hearn. “RINGS now has about 75 member research centres from all over the world.”

“After several years it seemed appropriate to bring together what RINGS had been discussing into a book, and this volume assesses the current state of gender and feminism around the world. We have contributions from an array of 22 countries, including Albania, Iran and Russia. It’s an up-to-date reflection of the current state of play in a field that is in flux, and it was important that the international aspect of RINGS was highlighted and this material was made available as a learning resource for students and academics.”

“Considering all three books, as well as the international contributions, it has also been gratifying to see how the three networks behind each book overlap. That has really helped shine a light on these subjects, especially helping to spread the debate beyond just a European or Global North point of view.”