about me
Dr Briony Hannell (she/her)
I’m Briony and I’m an early-career feminist researcher and sociologist based in the Department of Sociological Studies at the University of Sheffield, UK. I completed my PhD in Politics at the University of East Anglia, UK, in 2021. My research interests span across (digital) media, culture, and communications, feminist sociology, cultural studies, internet studies, digital sociology, youth studies, and fan studies. I am primarily interested in young people, citizenship and participation, and digital (anti)feminisms. My first book, Feminist Fandom, is out now.
My research on young people, feminism and anti-feminism, fan culture, digital culture, and Tumblr has been featured in The Observer, Vice, The Independent, Dazed, WIRED, BBC Radio, and more. For press-related and other enquires, please email me at b.hannell@sheffield.ac.uk.
I am a award-winning university lecturer, supervisor, and teacher, with accreditation as a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and experience teaching generalist and specialist modules in (digital) sociology, gender studies, media and communications, and more, at all levels of study.
You can also find me on X (formerly Twitter) @brionyhannell.
Reviews of Feminist Fandom
“While the pedagogical value of digitally-mediated fandoms is often asserted, here Briony Hannell critically engages with the complexities and contradictions of how a feminist pedagogy functions in online fan spaces. Through its exploration of a range of practices and debates from reflexive un/learning to “SJW fatigue” in these communities, this book complicates exclusively celebratory claims about fandom’s links to rising feminist consciousness. While Hannell’s arguments are deeply attuned to the socio-technical features of Tumblr, her sophisticated theoretical, methodological and analytic approach is an exemplar of critical and nuanced digital feminist media analysis that makes this book a must-read in the field.”
— Alison Harvey, author of Feminist Media Studies (2019) and Associate Professor of Communications, York University, Canada
“Fandom as a pathway to feminism is understudied, yet after reading Feminist Fandom, the two seem inseparable. This book offers a compelling account of the intersection of digital cultures, feminisms and popular culture. As such, it is recommended reading for scholars in participatory culture, audience studies, gender studies, feminist studies and fandom studies. This is a book about the power of stories, the importance of Tumblr as a platform of first-person narration and the centrality of storytelling for social movements and their reinvention.”
— Katrin Tiidenberg, Professor of Participatory Culture, Tallin University, Estonia
blog posts
- Decolonising Sociological Studies: The seminar seriesIn November 2022, the Everyday Life and Critical Diversities Research Theme invited colleagues to discuss Ali Meghji’s (2021) Decolonizing Sociology: An Introduction (Polity). The event prompted a lively exchange between academic staff, Professional Services staff, and PGR students who were keen for us to find ways to continue the discussion and help them decolonise their research and teaching. In response, in January 2023 we – Jo Britton as the Director of One University, Julie Walsh as the Athena Swan Champion and Briony Hannell as the Decolonising the Curriculum lead – successfully applied to the Department of Sociological Studies Strategic Research Fund to deliver a Decolonising Sociological Studies seminar series.
- The queerest place on the internet?: Queer belonging on Tumblr
Originally posted on Sociological Studies Research:
Written by Dr Briony Hannell, University of Sheffield This post is published to mark the beginning of LGBT+ History Month. Photo by Cecilie Johnsen on Unsplash Over the past decade, few social media platforms have been as hypervisible in their ability to attract young queer (i.e. those broadly aligned under the LGBT+ umbrella) users as the multimedia microblogging platform Tumblr. At the height of the 2010s, Tumblr’s popularity among queer English-speaking Internet users secured its subcultural reputation as the “queerest place on the internet” and as a platform that “queer[ed] an entire generation”. But…
Briony Hannell 