Steven C Bailey

Biography

Dr. Steve Bailey is an Associate Professor for the Humanities Department and Director of the Joint Graduate Program in Communication and Culture. His research interests are in the intersections of critical cultural theory, especially psychoanalysis and sociological theory, and contemporary media culture. His current research explores connections between the work of dramaturgical sociologists (especially Erving Goffman) and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, particularly in relationship to issues of social performance and technology. His wider interests are eclectic; he has published on psychoanalytic theory and media culture, aesthetics and post-punk musical culture, media fan culture, teen cinema, and the internet’s rhetorical ironies. He is generally interested in experimenting with unorthodox theoretical combinations and blending high/low culture, old/new theory, and sociological/philosophical perspectives. In terms of undergraduate education, he believes the fundamental task for educators is to free students from the banalities of everyday thinking and the tyranny of inherited circumstances and equip them for cultural and political participation in a public sphere.

Research Interest

Media Culture (especially popular music and contemporary cinema), Sociological Theory and Contemporary Philosophy, Identity and Self-Consciousness, Psychoanalytic Theory (especially Lacanian and post-Lacanian theory)