Dr Mary Holmes - on leave S2, 2008
Email: mary.holmes@flinders.edu.au
Phone: (61 8) 8201 3010
Fax: (61 8) 8201 3521
Room: 3116 SSN
Phd (1999) University of Auckland
MA (1991) University of York, England
BA (1987) University of Auckland
Postal Address:
Department of Sociology
Flinders University
GPO Box 2100
Adelaide SA 5001
Australia
Current Teaching
SOCI
3016 Sociology of Intimacy
Research Interests
- Gender: feminist social theory, sociology of feminism, and gender issues particularly in relation to my other research interests.
- Emotions and Intimate Relationships: Including work on emotions in politics and empirical work on distance relationships.
- Sociology of Bodies: Especially gendered bodies and their representation
- Political and Cultural Representation: Sociology of culture; political cultures; how processes of political and cultural representation are intertwined.
Mary Holmes' research deals with questions about the balance
between structural and cultural factors in the (re)production of inequalities.
While gender is usually the focus, inequalities are understood as entangled
and therefore the work encompasses issues of class, ethnicity, sexuality
and other ways in which differences are embodied and felt within particular
social processes and relationships. Her previous writings have centred on
how second wave feminist politics challenged the way women have been represented
within both political and symbolic
systems. Current empirical work is on distance relationships and explores
the extent to which gender is embodied, represented, structured, challenged
and/or reproduced within dual-career couples who reside in separate regions.
Such relationships challenge assumptions that physical proximity is essential
for intimacy and raise important questions about the gendered and relational
nature of emotions. This work all feeds efforts to understand how gender
and gender inequalities are lived and expressed within contemporary social
conditions.
Select Publications
Holmes, M. (2007) What is Gender? Sociological Approaches, London, Sage.
Homes, M. (2006) 'Love lives at a distance: distance relationship over the lifecourse, Sociological Research Online 11 (3), http://www.socresonline.org.uk/11/3/holmes.html
Holmes, M. (2004) 'The precariousness of choice in the new sentimental order: A comment on Bawin Legros' Current Sociology 52(2): 251-7.
Holmes, M. (2004) 'An Equal Distance? Individualisation, Gender and Intimacy in Distance Relationships'. The Sociological Review 52(2):180-200.
Holmes, M. (2004) 'Feeling beyond rules: Politicising the Sociology of Emotion and Anger in Feminist Politics' European Journal of Social Theory 7(2): 209-227.
Holmes, M. (2000) 'When is the Personal Political? The President's Penis and Other Stories'. Sociology 34(2): 305-321.