Dr Alex Dymock

Dr Alex Dymock’s expertise lies principally in sexuality and gender studies with a focus on criminalised and marginalised sexual desires and practices. Her work draws frequently on her interdisciplinary background and combines methods from the humanities and social sciences.

Prior to joining Goldsmiths in 2019, Alex was a Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Law at Royal Holloway, University of London. She completed her PhD at the School of Law, University of Reading in 2015 and before this undertook an MA in Gender and Culture at Goldsmiths, and a BA in English Language and Literature at the University of Leeds. She converted her first degree to law at the University of Westminster.

In 2018-19 Alex led a project funded by a Wellcome Trust Seed Award in the Humanities and Social Sciences entitled Pharmacosexuality: the past, present and future of sex on drugs, and is currently writing up the findings of this research. The project investigates the historical and contemporary interaction between the pharmaceuticalisation of sexuality and recreational drug use in sexual contexts, and uses both archival and qualitative methods. More information about the project is available on the project website (pharmacosexuality.wordpress.com) and on Twitter: @pharmacosex.

Teaching

Alex is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and her Criminal Law teaching frequently employs critical and radical pedagogies. She also has an interest in experiential learning through assessment, and in 2018 was awarded a Royal Holloway College Teaching Excellence Prize for her work in this area.

Public engagement

Alex has a keen interest in engaging the public with academic research. Her research has been featured in a number of media outlets, such as an interview on BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour, articles in the Guardian, and a recent article for the Wellcome Collection. She has given talks at venues such as the British Film Institute, Public Health England, Amnesty International, and the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies.

Featured Publications

Dymock, A. and van der Westhuizen, C. (2018) ‘A dish served cold: Targeting revenge in revenge pornography’ Legal Studies, published online 27/12/18

Dymock, A. (2018) ‘Spectacular Law and Order: Photography, social harm and the production of ignorance’ in Agnotology, Power and Harm: The Study of Ignorance and the Criminological Imagination (eds. Alana Barton and Howard Davies), Palgrave Macmillan Critical Criminological Perspectives Series, pp. 189-211.

Dymock, A. (2018) ‘Anticommunal, antiegalitarian, antinurturing, antiloving: Sex and the ‘irredeemable’ in Dworkin and MacKinnon’, Paragraph: A Journal of Modern Critical Theory 41(3): 349-363.

Dymock, A. (2018) ‘A doubling of the offence? Murder, ‘extreme’ pornography and the politics of cultural harm’ in Just Harm? Rethinking Zemiology and the Broader Context of Social Harm (eds. Avi Boukli and Justin Kotzé), Palgrave Macmillan Critical Criminological Perspectives Series, pp. 165-182.

Dymock, A. (2017) ‘Responding to Sexual Harms in Communities: Who pays and who cares?’ in Ask: Building Consent Culture (ed. Kitty Stryker), Portland, OR: Thorntree Press, pp. 57-62.