Christopher T. Conner

Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Missouri

Areas of Expertise:

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About Christopher

Conner's research is at the intersections of deviance, subcultures, social movements, and LGBT Issues. His work has appeared in The Sociological Quarterly, Symbolic Interaction, and YOUNG: Nordic Journal of Youth Research. He is the editor of Forgotten Founders and Other Neglected Social Theorists, The Gayborhood, and an upcoming issue of Studies in Symbolic Interaction on subcultures.

Contributions | No Jargon Podcast | In the News | Publications

Contributions

Why Are So Many Young People Having Less Sex and Fewer Friendships?

Commentary, November 2022

In the News

Quoted by Adrian Burtin in "Americans Aren’t Shy, Except for When It Comes to Politics," Vox Magazine, February 25, 2020.

Publications

" Electric Empires: From Subculture to Culture Industry." (with David R. Dickens) (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021).

Explores the Electronic Dance Music (EDM) subculture. Shows how gay Latino and African American men, living in Chicago and Detroit, helped create a movement in opposition to overly oppressive policing practices and feelings of alienation and isolation.

"Situating Subcultures" Studies in Symbolic Interaction 54, no. 1 (2021): 1-6.

Explores the various ways the term subculture has been defined.

"The Gay Gayze: Expressions of Inequality on Grindr" The Sociological Quarterly 60, no. 3 (2018): 397-419 .

Demonstrates how new technologies, ironically, have reinforced existing cultural practices and shows how body typing, ageism, racism, and HIV stigma are reproduced within gay men’s self-performance on the app. Considers how the app's structure, and the general makeup of online worlds, make such phenomena more easily reproducible.