# Lisa Downing > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Lisa_Downing > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Lisa_Downing.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Downing > Source revision: 1322899737 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{Short description|British author and academic (born 1974)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=June 2022}} thumb|right|Lisa Downing '''Lisa Downing''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|d|aʊ|n|ɪ|ŋ}}; born 1974) is an [author](/source/author) and academic. She is [Professor](/source/Professor) of French Discourses of Sexuality at the [University of Birmingham](/source/University_of_Birmingham).{{cite web | url=http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/french/downing-lisa.aspx | title=Professor Lisa Downing | publisher=University of Birmingham | accessdate=26 April 2014}} Downing's work is innovative in its dialogue between the critical humanities and the sciences, especially psychiatry. Her published work has focused on theories of sexual perversion and queer theory; the work of [Michel Foucault](/source/Michel_Foucault); ethical philosophy and film; the cultural meanings of criminality; gendered selfishness; and, most recently, a critique of the culture of emotion or the "affective turn". ==Background and career== Downing trained in Modern European Languages, Literatures, and Thought at the Universities of London and [Oxford](/source/University_of_Oxford). She took up a Lectureship at [Queen Mary, University of London](/source/Queen_Mary%2C_University_of_London) in 1999, where she was promoted to [Reader](/source/Reader_(academic_rank)) in 2005. She was appointed to a chair at [the University of Exeter](/source/University_of_Exeter) in 2006, at the age of 31.{{Cite web|url=https://exeter.academia.edu/LisaDowning|title=Lisa Downing|accessdate=2011-09-25}} In 2012, Downing moved to an established chair at the University of Birmingham. She was one of co-organisers of the interdisciplinary seminar series [http://criticalsexology.org.uk/ "Critical Sexology"] from 2006-2018. ==Awards== Downing received a 2009 [Philip Leverhulme Prize](/source/Philip_Leverhulme_Prize), a prize "awarded to outstanding scholars under the age of 36 who have made a substantial contribution to their field of study, are recognised at an international level, and whose future contributions are held to be of correspondingly high promise."{{Cite web|url=https://news-archive.exeter.ac.uk/2009/december/title_49604_en.html|title= Leverhulme Prize for work on French Sexuality|date=2009-11-03|accessdate=2012-12-25}} ==Works== ;Books as author * ''Desiring the Dead: Necrophilia and Nineteenth-Century French Literature'' (Oxford, EHRC, 2003) * ''Patrice Leconte'' (French Film Directors Series; Manchester University Press, 2004) * ''The Cambridge Introduction to Michel Foucault'' (Cambridge University Press, 2008) * ''Film and Ethics: Foreclosed Encounters'' (co-authored with Libby Saxton; Routledge, 2009) * ''The Subject of Murder: Gender, Exceptionality, and the Modern Killer'' (Chicago University Press, 2013) * ''Fuckology'' (Chicago University Press, 2014) co-authored with [Iain Morland](/source/Iain_Morland) and Nikki Sullivan, a critical analysis of the legacy of [psychologist](/source/psychologist) and [sexologist](/source/Sexology) [John Money](/source/John_Money). ''[New Scientist](/source/New_Scientist)'' described [https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo18991189.html#anchor-reviews the book] as "ably capturing" Money's story{{cite web |title=Is sexology just too human to study? |publisher=[New Scientist](/source/New_Scientist) |url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429991.800-is-sexology-just-too-human-to-study.html |date=16 December 2014 |accessdate=2014-12-26 }} while [Susan Stryker](/source/Susan_Stryker) described [https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo18991189.html#anchor-reviews the book] as a "careful, critical and nuanced" analysis of Money's career. * ''Selfish Women'' (Routledge, 2019). [https://www.mmll.cam.ac.uk/film/people/emma-wilson Emma Wilson] described [https://www.routledge.com/Selfish-Women/Downing/p/book/9780367249892 the book] as "startling, trenchant and original" and stated that "Downing's critical brilliance, command of the material, and uncompromsing approach are dazzling". * ''Against Affect'' (University of Nebraska Press, forthcoming 2026) ;Books as editor * ''Currencies: Fiscal Fortunes and Cultural Capital in Nineteenth-Century France'' (with Sarah Capitanio, Paul Rowe and Nick White; Peter Lang, 2005) * ''Perversion: Psychoanalytic Perspectives/ Perspectives on Psychoanalysis'' (with Dany Nobus; Karnac Books, 2006) * ''Birth and Death in Nineteenth-Century French Culture'' (with Nigel Harkness, Sonya Stephens and Tim Unwin; Rodopi, 2007) * ''From Perversion to Purity: The Stardom of Catherine Deneuve'' (with Sue Harris; Manchester University Press, 2007) * ''Queer in Europe: Contemporary Case Studies'' (with Robert Gillett; Ashgate, 2011) * ''Queering the Second Wave'' (with Lara Cox; Edinburgh University Press, 2018) * ''After Foucault: Culture, Criticism and Theory in the 21st Century'' (Cambridge University Press, 2018) * ''Critical Freedoms'' (Edinburgh University Press, 2023) ==References== {{reflist}} ==External links== * {{Url|http://www.lisadowning.co.uk|Lisa Downing's author site}} * {{Url|http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/lisadowning| Lisa Downing's page at the University of Birmingham}} * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvXLKhRQv64/ 'Selfish women and other inconvenient deviants', Lisa Downing's inaugural lecture video] * {{Url|http://www.criticalsexology.org.uk/|The Critical Sexology website}} {{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Downing, Lisa}} Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:English literary critics Category:British women literary critics Category:Literary critics of French Category:Members of Academia Europaea Category:Alumni of St Cross College, Oxford Category:Living people Category:Academics of the University of Birmingham Category:Alumni of Queen Mary University of London Category:British women writers --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Lisa Downing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Downing) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Downing?action=history)). 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