Dymock, Alex

I am currently Senior Lecturer in Law in the Department of Law at Goldsmiths, University of London. I joined Goldsmiths from Royal Holloway, University of London in 2019, where I was a Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Law. My work explores the regulation of sexuality, criminal law and criminal justice, technologies and biopolitics, feminist and queer theory. I have an interdisciplinary background that includes a BA in English Literature (University of Leeds), an MA in Gender and Culture (Goldsmiths, University of London) and a PhD in Law from University of Reading, which I completed in 2015. I converted my first degree to Law at University of Westminster.

My current research examines gender, sexuality and the governance of cultures of drug use. This is the focus of a project funded by British Academy/Leverhulme Trust (https://sexandpsychedelics.squarespace.com) looking at how and why people use psychedelics to manage trauma related to sex in the context of a 'renaissance' of research into the benefits of legalising psychedelics as therapeutic medicines. I am also currently working collaboratively on an upcoming exhibition on sex and psychedelics with the Museum of Sex in NYC. Previously, I led a wide-ranging project on the past, present and future of sex on drugs, funded by the Wellcome Trust. I am particularly interested in the meanings we attach to sex-related drug use now and historically, and the relationship between the effects of enhancement and repair, in addition to the relationship between sexuality, intoxication and the law.

I am a member (and until recently convenor of the Gender, Sexuality and Law stream) of the Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA) and am an SLSA grant holder. I am an external examiner of the Law programmes at University of Bristol and Oxford Brookes University. I have recently been appointed as a Policy Specialist to the Drug Science Medical Psychedelics group, and I a member of the Public Health England 'chemsex' advisory group. At the end of July 2024 I will travel to the Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School to take part in 'Psychedelic Bootcamp', a training intensive on psychedelics law for future psychedelics 'thought leaders'.

Area(s) of expertise: sexualities, criminal law and criminal justice, drug use and drug policy, feminist and queer theory, STS