Research Interests
Sheila L. Cavanagh is an Associate Professor in Sociology and the Sexuality Studies Coordinator at York University. Her research is in the area of gender and sexuality with a concentration on queer, cultural, and psychoanalytic theories. Cavanagh recently co-edited a collection with Angela Failler and Rachel Alpha Johnston Hurst titled Skin, Culture and Psychoanalysis (2013), published by Palgrave Macmillan. Her first sole-authored book titled Sexing the Teacher: School Sex Scandals and Queer Pedagogies (UBC, 2007) was given honorable mention by the Canadian Women's Studies Association. Her second sole-authored book titled Queering Bathrooms: Gender, Sexuality, and the Hygienic Imagination (UTP, 2010) is a GLBT Indie Book Award finalist and recipient of the CWSA/ACEF Outstanding Scholarship Prize Honourable Mention (2012). Her performed ethnography titled Queer Bathroom Monologues (QBM) premiered at the Toronto Fringe Festival (2011) and was given the Audience Pick Award. Cavanagh received a SSHRC Dissemination grant to stage the production at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and the show has already been staged at colleges and universities in Canada and the United States. She has published in a wide range of international refereed journals including: Sexualities: Studies in Culture and Society; Body and Society; Social Text; Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education; Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society; and The International Journal of Cultural Studies. Cavanagh is now working on a sole-authored manuscript titled Queer Psychoanalytics: Jacques Lacan and the "Other" Jouissance.
