John Mercer

• Contemporary Masculinity
• Digital Intimacy
• Popular performances of gender 
• Film and Television Melodrama
• Gay Cultures
• Screen Performance
• Sexual Representation

• PhD Film and Cultural Studies
• MA Media and Cultural Studies
• BA (hons) Media and Communication

• AHRC Peer Review College Member
• Editor of Journal of Gender Studies
• Editor of Porn Studies
• Member of The Sex Education Forum
• Member of AoIR (Association of Internet Researchers)
• Advisory Board member for Danish Research Council research project The Cultural History of AIDS in Denmark (2021 to 2023)
• AHRC Peer Review College member (appointed 2019)
• Research Fellow of MEDUSA: Genders in Transition research network, UOC, Barcelona (from 2019)
• Executive Committee of MECCSA (2017 to 2020)
• Advisory Board of Melodrama Research Consortium Rutgers University (from 2013)
• Associate member of Melodrama Research Group University of Kent (from 2012)
• Member of SCMS (Society for Cinema and Media Studies)
• Member of MECCSA (Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Association)
• Member of NECS (Network for European Cinema Studies) (2000 to 2006)

BA Media and Communication

• Gender, Sexuality and the Body
• Hollywood: Early Film to Blockbuster
• Gender and Music

PhD Supervision

• PGCert in Research Practice

• PI John Mercer (BCU), CoI, Joao Florencio (LIU, Sweden), CoI Jana Funke (Exeter) (Awarded, commenced Jan 2024)

Current PhD supervisions

• Lerelle Willden-Lewis Marginalised Queer People’s Use of Dating Apps
• Alexah Tomey-Alleyne Reimagining Blackness Through Dance Improvisation
• Ana Rutter How theory might affect the understanding and creation of non-narrative sound sculpture
• Sophie Hedderwick Beyond sensors, de-coding the curve of the young female body: feminism and polymophous performance art in the age of digital transformation
• Harrison Charles Scripting Gay Sex in Gaming: Exploring Sexual Scripting and Identity within Queer-Based Pornographic Video Games
• Jia Seah The Eroticised Image of the Chinese Female Body in 21st Century Private Photography in China
• Nataliya Rozhin Navigating the Nexus: Exploration of the Interconnected Legacy of Academia, Curators, Gatekeepers, and Media as Communication Channels of Experimental Fashion
• Reuben Mount Tails to Tell: How furries use the furry fandom as a safe space for the exploration of their sexual, gender and other identities.

Books

Sexualised Masculinity with Clarissa Smith (Routledge 2025)

RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Cultural Politics of Fame J Mercer, J Hakim and C Sarson (eds) Routledge 2024

Toxic Masculinity: Men, Meaning and Digital Media J Mercer and M McGlashan (eds) Routledge 2023

Objectification: On the Difference between Sex and Sexism with Feona Attwood, Alan McKee, Susanna Paasonen and Clarissa Smith (Routledge, 2021)

Gay Porn: Representations of Masculinity and Sexuality IBTauris, 2017

Childhood and Celebrity J Mercer and J O’Connor (eds) Routedge, 2017

Rock Hudson. BFI Publishing, 2014

Melodrama: Genre, Style and Sensibility J Mercer and M Shingler, (Japanese translation) Film Art/Columbia University Press, 2011

Melodrama: Genre, Style and Sensibility J Mercer and M Shingler, Columbia University Press, 2004

Journal Articles

‘‘Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve and Talent’: RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Cultural Politics of Fame.’ (with Jamie Hakim and Charlie Sarson) Celebrity Studies. 2020, ISSN 1939-2397

‘Fifteen Seconds of Fame: Rupaul’s Drag Race, Camp, and ‘Memeability’’ (with Charlie Sarson) Celebrity Studies. 2020, ISSN 1939-2397

‘Sex Positivity and the Persistence of Shame’ Sexualities, 2018, 21:8, 1304-1307

‘Popperbate: Video Collage, Vernacular Creativity and the Scripting of the Gay Pornographic Body’ Routledge, Porn Studies. Special Edition, J Mercer (ed) 2017, 4:2, 242-256

‘The Secret History: Porn Archives, Personal Collections and British Universities’ Routledge, Porn Studies, 2014, 1:4, 411-415

‘The Enigma of the Male Sex Symbol.’ Routledge, Celebrity Studies. Special Edition, J Mercer (ed) Sex and Celebrity, 2013, 4:1, 81-91

‘Coming of Age: Problematizing Gay Porn and the Eroticised Older Man.’ Routledge, The Journal of Gender Studies, 2012, 21:3, 312-326

‘Gay for Pay: Das Internet and die Okonomie des homosexuellen Begehrens.’ Schuren Verlag, Montage AV,18/2/2009, 75-97

‘Deep in the Brig: The Myth of the Prison in Gay Pornography.’ Routledge, The Journal of Homosexuality, 2004, Vol.47, 3 and 4. 151-166

‘Prototypes: Repetition and the Construction of the Generic in Gay Pornography.’ Collected in Paragraph special issue, J Still (ed) Men’s Bodies. 2003, 280-290

Chapters in Edited Collections

‘Trump’s Last Gasp: Melodrama, Toxic Dramaturgy and Zombie Masculinity’ in John Mercer and Mark McGlashan (eds) Routledge Toxic Masculinity: Men, Meaning and Digital Media, 2022

‘The Metrosexual: Figures of Masculinity’ (with Feona Attwood) Routledge, in Feona Attwood and Clarissa Smith (eds) Routledge Handbook on Media, Sex and Sexuality, 2018,

‘The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name: O Fanstasma and Erotomania’ I.B. Tauris, in Donna Peberdy and Darren Kerr (eds) Tainted Love: Screening Sexual Perversion, 2017, 15-28

‘Power Bottom: Performativity in Commercial Gay Pornographic Video.’ Columbia University Press, in Claire Hines and Darren Kerr (eds) Hard to Swallow: Hard-Core Pornography on Screen, 2012, 215-228

‘Gay for Pay: The Internet and the Economics of Homosexual Desire’ Blackwell-Wiley, in Karen Ross (ed) The Handbook of Gender, Sex, and Media, 2011, 535-551  

‘Gay for Pay: Internet e l’economia del desiderio omosessuale.’ Mimesis Edizioni, in Enrico Biasin, Giovanna Maina, Federico Zecca (eds) Il Porno Espanso: Dal Cinema ai Nuovo Media, 2010, 241-267  

‘Seeing is Believing: Constructions of Stardom and The Gay Porn Star in U.S. Gay Video Pornography.’ in, S Holmes and S Redmond (eds) Framing Celebrity. Routledge. 2006, 145-160

 ‘Melodrama’ in B.K. Grant (ed), The Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film, Thomson Gale 2006

 ‘Semiotics’ in B.K. Grant (ed), The Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film, Thomson Gale 2006

“Deep in the Brig: The Myth of the Prison in Gay Pornography.” in, T Morrison (ed) Pornucopia: Eclectic Views on Gay Male Pornography. Haworth Press. 2005, 151-166

Recent Conferences

Research presentation, ‘Acting Like a Man: Rock Hudson’s Performance of Masculinity’,

IIPC Stardom Symposium, University of Turku, December 2nd 2022

Research presentation, ‘Sexualised Masculinity in the 21st Century’ Gender Lab at the Marie Jahoda Center for International Gender at Ruhr University Bochum, November 17^th 2022

Research presentation, COVID Sex Lives: dating apps and the sexual wellbeing of men who have sex with men during COVID-19 Kings College London, June 14th 2022

‘Gay Middle Age: Bodies, Identities, Sexualities in a Somatic Society’ paper delivered at Medicine Man – Media assemblages of Medicalized Masculinities Symposium, Kings College London, May 13th 2022

Masculinity Sex and Popular Culture Research Network, Masculinity in Times of Change

Monday 20th to Wednesday 22nd September 2021

Online Symposium

The Future of Masculine Bodies, Sexualities and Affects dialogue with John Mercer (Birmingham City University), Clarissa Smith (Northumberland in Media and Cultural Studies, University of Sunderland)
and Krizia Nardini, Men in Movement, V Masculinities and Feasible Futures International Conference
September 29th to October 1st, 2021 BARCELONA

Keynote address, ‘Masculinity: An Epidemiological Analysis’ Viral Masculinities Online Conference, University of Exeter, 31^st August 2020

• Script and gender and sexuality consultant on production of Mike Bartlett’s “Cock” dir. Marianne Elliot at Ambassador’s Theatre. (September 2021 to January 2022)
• Sex and the Pandemic: A Speaker Series: Categorical Splits “How to ”Not” Have Sex in a Pandemic: COVID-19 and Online Gay Male Sexual Cultures” with Jamie Hakin (KCL) July 2021, Ryerson University
• Panel member for BCU City Talks discussion, ‘What It Means to be a Man in the 21st Century?’ (March 2017)
• “Seeing is believing: ‘Saturated’ Masculinity and Gay Pornography ” Invited speaker at Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies at University of Leeds 28th January 2015
• “On Bad Acting: Triangulating Screen Performances ” Invited speaker at The Centre for Research in Media and Cultural Studies at University of Sunderland 26th January 2015
• Interviewed by John Narrs for Gay Times March 2015, p100. An interview with John Mercer, author of the book "Rock Hudson,"
• BFI book launch event for Rock Hudson (Star Studies series) at BAFTSS Conference, Manchester Metropolitan University (March 2015)
• “Rock vs Doris: Lover Come Back” in Conversation and Screening for Flatpack Film Festival (March 2014)
• Audio Commentary for DVD Blu Ray release of new digital transfer of All That Heaven Allows, Criterion Collection (February 2014)

Academia profile

Mascnet.org