Dr. Jack Black

I am an Associate Professor of Culture, Media, and Sport.

Grounded in traditional empirical sources and critical analyses of film, television, and digital media, my scholarly work situates itself across the humanities and social sciences, exploring research interests that intersect psychoanalytic theory with cultural studies.

I am also an investigator for the AHRC-IRC funded project, Tackling Online Hate in Football, which examines online abuse during international football events.

My teaching involves introductory modules on philosophy and sociology as well as leading the research methodology and methods module.

At present, I am Associate Editor for the International Journal of the Sociology of Leisure and Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society.

In 2023, I published The Psychosis of Race: A Lacanian Approach to Racism and Racialization (Routledge), which applied key concepts from Lacanian psychoanalysis to theorizations of race and racism. This included examples drawn from popular culture and politics.

In 2021, I published Race, Racism and Political Correctness in Comedy - A Psychoanalytic Exploration (Routledge), which explored how comedy can be used to subvert examples of political correctness, as performed in television sitcoms, specifically, The Office (UK).

I am also co-editor of Sport and Psychoanalysis: What Sport Reveals about Our Unconscious Desires, Fantasies, and Fears (Lexington Books, 2024) and Sport and Physical Activity in Catastrophic Environments (Routledge, 2022).

My research is affiliated with the Centre for Culture, Media and Society at Sheffield Hallam University, where I am Research Lead for the 'Anti-Racism Research Group'.

I have a PhD, MSc and BSc (Hons) from Loughborough University and have previously taught at the University of Leicester, Nottingham Trent University, and Loughborough University.