
Dr Peter Redman
Senior Lecturer, Sociology
Biography
Research interests
I studied at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham, a background that continues to inform my thinking. However, I now work in the fields of psychoanalytic sociology and psychosocial studies and am broadly interested in the unconscious dimensions of social life, particularly those that can be said to have a collective or properly social character.
I previously edited (with Stephen Frosh and Wendy Hollway) the Palgrave book series, Studies in the Psychosocial and am a former editor of the journal, Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society. I am on the advisory board of the book series Psychoanalytic Horizons and a member of the British Sociological Association, the Association for Psychosocial Studies and the Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture & Society.
With Wendy Maples, I co-authored Good Essay Writing: A Social Sciences Guide (Sage, 2017) now in its fifth edition.
A repository of research publications and other research outputs can be viewed at The Open University's Open Research Online.
Teaching interests
I have taught on a range of OU sociology and interdisicplinary social science modules, most recently as chair of D113 Global challenges: social science in action.
Publications
Book
Book Chapter
'I just wanted her out': Attachment, the psycho-social and media texts (2025)
Graham Dawson’s “Soldier Heroes”: An Overlooked Classic of Psychosocial Studies (2024)
Graham Dawson’s Soldier Heroes: An Overlooked Classic of Psychosocial Studies (2022)
Too much, too young? Social media, moral panics and young people’s mental health (2021)
Boxing masculinities: Attachment, embodiment and heroic narratives (2008)
Affective attachment in families (2008)
Journal Article
A Sad Story? Time, Interpretation and Feeling in Biographical Methods (2023)
Introduction to the special issue on psychoanalysis and sociology (2019)
Gratitude and leave-taking: Editorial reflections, 2003-2017 (2017)
Once more with feeling: What is the psychosocial anyway? (2016)
Special issue on Alfred Lorenzer: Introduction (2010)
Alfred Lorenzer and the depth-hermeneutic method (2010)
Comments on the status of Boyhood Studies (2009)
Who cares about the psycho-social?: masculinities, schooling and the unconscious (2005)
Boys Bonding: same-sex friendship, the unconscious and heterosexual masculinities (2002)
Boys and girls come out to play: making masculinities and femininities in school playgrounds (2001)
Private girls and public worlds: producing femininities in the primary school (2001)