Undervisar främst inom Masterprogrammet i barn- och ungdomsvetenskap, doktorandkurser samt i kursen "Sociala relationer i skolan".

Min forskning fokuserar på unga, genus och sexualitet, där jag primärt intresserar mig för maskulinitet, affekt och olika former av våld. 

I min avhandling (2009), Involved Parenthood: Everyday Lives of Swedish Middle-Class Families, studerade jag föräldrars könade förhandlingar om engagemang i sina barns vardagsliv. Som postdoktor vid UCLA (2009-2010) forskade jag om amerikanska fäders engagemang i sina barns utbildning och organiserade idrott. 2010-2015 var jag forskarassistent och lektor vid Linköpings universitet, där jag genomförde ett projekt om maskulinitet och våld i nära relationer. 

Jag har under senare år även forskat om våldsprevention i skolan. Min nuvarande forskning kretsar främst kring unga män, sex och njutning; "manosfären" (dvs. mansrättsaktvism online) samt maskulinitet och politisk extremism. 

Forskningsprojekt

Music and Far-Right Extremism Online (MuREX) (Vetenskapsrådet 2025-2027)

YOU-DARE – YOUth Debunking the gendered Arguments of far-Right Extremism (Horizon Europe 2025-2028)

Maskulinitet, maskulinistisk politik och politisk extremism i Norden (Nordforsk/NOS-HS 2023-25)

Unga män och sex – mellan risk och njutning (Folkhälsomyndigheten 2022-2024)

Tidigare forskningsprojekt:

Maskulinitet och våldsbejakande extremism (Center mot våldsbejakande extremism & Jämställdhetsmyndigheten 2021-2022)

Föräldrars och vänners respons på killars våld mot tjejer i nära relationer (Forte 2016-2020)

Utvärdering av Mentors in Violence Prevention (SKR 2018-2020)

Utvärdering av Mentorer i våldsprevention (MVP) (Skolverket 2015-2017)

Mor- och farföräldrars respons på våld i nära relationer. Barns erfarenheter och perspektiv (Allmänna barnhuset 2014-2015)

Femicide across Europe (COST Action 2013-2016)

Men’s violence against women in intimate relations: A study of the perpetrators' social networks. (Forte 2010-2015)

International network on responses to interpersonal violence: Research across countries and disciplines. (Forte 2011-2013)

Hegemonic masculinities and men in Sweden and South Africa: Theorizing power and change (VR 2009-2011)

Involved fatherhood and men's parental practices in Sweden and the U.S. (FAS 2009-2010)

Media och populärvetenskap

Män, maskulinitet och våldsbejakande extremism, CVE-podden, 2022-12-05

Män som slår – och omgivningen som vet, Vetenskapsradion SRP1, 2021-06-01

Våld i ungas relationer – samhällets blinda fläck, Vetenskapsradion SRP1, 2021-05-31

Den splittrade manligheten, Kropp & själ SRP1, 2021-05-26

Mamboskapets ultimata dystopi, Expressen, 2021-02-15

Fina flickor, fula pojkar, Ottar, nr. 4, 2020

Krisande män och kontrollerad orgasm, Ord & bild, nr. 4, 2018

Föreläsningar

Utvärdering av Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP), Sveriges kommuner och regioner, 2021-12-16 

Big boys' bedrooms, WIFTI Talks, 2019-06-19

En mer mänsklig maskulinitet, UR Samtiden – Jämställdhet 2.0, 2014

I urval från Stockholms universitets publikationsdatabas

• Exploring the link between masculinity and violent extremism: Remasculinization as individual and political project

  2025. Lucas Gottzén. Sociology Compass

  Artikel

  Men constitute the majority of violent extremists and terrorists, yet academic research in the field has largely overlooked the role of masculinity. This article explores how the relationship between masculinity and political and religious violent activism has been understood in a small but emerging field of critical men and masculinities studies on Jihadist, far-right, and left-wing extremism. Through a scoping review of academic literature published 2000–2022, it examines how masculinity intersects with radicalization processes, extremist ideologies, and political and religious violence across these movements in Western societies. It outlines the main contributions of this literature, including that despite their differing political views, extremist groups share common ideals of performing masculinity through street violence and militarized activism. However, while left-wing movements endorse gender equality, both far- right and Jihadist extremists contend that masculinity is threatened by feminism. These latter environments hold misogynistic views central to their ideologies while simultaneously accusing others of sexism and misogyny to justify their violent activism. The discussed literature also suggests that young men often become radicalized not primarily for ideological reasons, but as ways to prove their masculinity and deal with their experienced social and economic marginalization. Finally, the article proposes that the concept of “remasculinization” helps us understand how violent extremism may serve two purposes simultaneously: as a tool for individuals attempting to meet masculinity standards, and as a means for broader political projects aimed at maintaining male supremacy.

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• Big boys hiding in their bedrooms: Exploring representations of men’s arrested development in post-millennium Hollywood cinema

  2025. Lucas Gottzén. The forgotten realities of men, 315-330

  Kapitel

  This chapter discusses how the big-boy bedroom has been depicted in Hollywood cinema since 2000 and how adult men still living with their parents are portrayed. Developmental psychologists and rearing experts have long argued that the teenage bedroom is necessary for proper gender and sexual development, but in Western – and, particularly, North American culture – it is also considered a place that adolescent males need to leave behind lest they be considered immature or even a moral threat. These concerns have been echoed by contemporary pundits across the political spectrum. Drawing on a queer temporality perspective, I call into question normative assumptions pertaining to personal development by demonstrating how some life trajectories may be bent by diverging from the expected life course. Rather than seeing cinematic representations of grown-up men living with their parents as an expression of men’s juvenility, irresponsibility, or avoidance of long-term relationships, I argue that the pathologization of big boys in their bedrooms may be masking broader economic patterns that disadvantage young men and their opportunities for social mobility. Understanding the obscurantist nature of these bedroom anxieties helps us illuminate young men’s forgotten realities and their economic struggles in a neoliberal age.

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• Vulnerability, sovereign masculinity and male identity politics in the manosphere

  2025. Lucas Gottzén. Gender and Justice 1 (1), 13-31

  Artikel

  Critical masculinity scholars have recently suggested that men recognizing their own vulnerability, as well as the vulnerability of others, could be a tool for feminist masculinity politics. These arguments are inspired by feminist debates, particularly the work of Judith Butler, who stresses the importance of recognizing a universally shared vulnerability to counter masculinist discourses of sovereignty. Butler’s argument has been criticized for making vulnerability an ethical issue, rather than highlighting the social and material processes that render some bodies more vulnerable than others. While these feminist debates provide valuable insights, they often overlook men’s social vulnerabilities or see them as mere claims of unwarranted victimhood. This article aims to nuance discussions on vulnerability, by arguing that men’s recognition of vulnerability does not necessarily foster ethical responsiveness. To this end, the article analyzes books authored by activists from the manosphere group Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), demonstrating that while these authors embrace their own vulnerability, they simultaneously foster resentment, male identity politics and ideals of sovereign masculinity. Based on these findings, it is argued that feminist scholarship should seriously consider men’s experiences of social vulnerability and develop models that help men critique neoliberal politics and late capitalism, rather than merely encouraging men to recognize a shared ontological vulnerability.

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• The contemplative man:: "Positive" affect and masculinity in ecofascist visual communication

  2025. Maria Darwish, Lucas Gottzén. Journal of Gender Studies, 1-14

  Artikel

  Masculinity in far-right visual media is often portrayed through intimidat- ing images of dominant, militant men. However, this study of affect in Nordic ecofascist visual communication shows that men are also depicted in meditative stillness surrounded by spectacular nature. Such ‘positive’ representations contrast with the typical far-right depictions of militant masculinity. This paper examines how positive affective communication shapes far-right masculinity, focusing on the trope we call ‘the contem- plative man’. Inspired by affect theory and social semiotics, we analyse images from ecofascist Telegram channels that show men alone and together in nature participating in meditative and nature-connected practices. We demonstrate how the ‘contemplative man’ trope broadens the range of available far-right masculine identities and connects men with nature through nativism. We argue that nature in ecofascist dis- course allows for ‘quieter’ expressions of masculinity, providing a space for men to experience intimacy, spirituality and pleasure, alongside the traditional militant persona. Such forms of masculinity visualize the ‘blood and soil’ complex through natural imagery depicting outdoor activities such as cooking, hiking, and resting in peaceful solitude. This discourse fosters a special bond between white, Nordic men and the land, offering them a place in the social hierarchy and a role within ecology on both sensory and ideological levels.

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• Foolish fathers in Swedish family films: Involved  fatherhood and middle-glass masculinity as spectacle

  2024. Lucas Gottzén, Simon Wessbo. Swedish children’s cinema, 125-141

  Kapitel

  This chapter explores fatherhood and adult masculinity in the Swedish children’s film series about Sune (1993–2021). The Sune films showcase a cultural shift towards child-centredness, where men are increasingly expected to be involved, emotionally present, and spend time with their children. However, fathers in the Sune films are depicted as foolish as they try to portray themselves as more involved fathers than they actually are. The foolishness of the fathers also reflects class dynamics, as fatherhood is enacted in terms of attempts to attain upper middle-class status, where fathers present themselves as financially successful. However, these performances lack substance and consistently fail, or are at risk of failing. As a result, adult masculinity in the Sune films becomes a ridiculous spectacle that evokes laughter. The films exemplify how financial challenges in a neoliberal culture are individualised, turning the struggles of meeting the standards of middle-class fatherhood into personal flaws or failures.

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• Swallowing and spitting out the Red Pill: Young men, vulnerability, and radicalisation pathways in the manosphere

  2023. Matteo Botto, Lucas Gottzén. Journal of Gender Studies

  Artikel

  During the last decades, new forms of men’s rights activism have emerged, commonly referred to as the ‘manosphere’. This loosely connected, misogynistic online movement particularly attracts young men. Its shared ideology is the Red Pill, a neoconservative ideology that adopts essentialist notions of gender and sexuality, and selectively employs evolutionary psychology to support male supremacy. While the discourses of the manosphere have been mapped, little research exists on how and why young men join and leave such misogynist groups. This article contributes to critical youth and feminist scholarship by analysing the gendered dynamics of online misogynist radicalisation pathways. Based on narratives shared on a Reddit community for former ‘redpillers’, this article explores 30 young men’s experiences of entering and exiting the manosphere and details the essential role of vulnerability in these processes. The stories are synthesised into three phases to illustrate the paths in and out of the manosphere. 

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• Self-regulating or supervised boys? Young masculinity and sexuality in online pornography filter debates

  2023. Lucas Gottzén. Boyhood Studies 16 (1), 18-39

  Artikel

  This article analyzes debates about online pornography filters and youth in the Swedish press between 2016 and 2020, focusing on the depiction of boys and young men. Critics of filtering software argued that boys could self-regulate if they were provided better sex education and if parents communicated with them about pornography. In contrast, advocates posited that boys are incapable of developing healthy sexuality because online pornography is a powerful drug that leads to addiction and contributes to a rape culture. As boys were considered unable to get a filter “in their head,” proponents argued for disciplinary supervision through software in schools.

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• Boys’ brains on porn: Affect, addiction and cerebral subjectivity

  2023. Lucas Gottzén. Posthumanism and the man question, 73-84

  Kapitel

  This chapter explores the relationship between brain, media technology and young heteromasculinity by analyzing contemporary discussions about boys and pornography addiction. While concerns about these issues have been raised in many Western societies for some time, my starting point is recent debates in Sweden, where neuroscience has become a dominant way of framing pornography consumption. I further my discussion by analyzing Gary Wilson’s Your brain on porn, which has been influential to anti-pornography activists and young men desisting from pornography. Central to his claims about pornography addiction is plasticity, which presents the brain as becoming, but also reduces subjectivity and corporeality to mere brain processes. While pornography addiction discourse may make young men to passive recipients of mediated sex, constituting themselves as cerebral subjects also enables a neuro-based care of the self where they are encouraged to abstain from pornography.

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• Affect and gender-based violence: Event, atmosphere, memory

  2023. Lucas Gottzén. Routledge companion to gender and affect, 90-98

  Kapitel

  Drawing upon the example of Annie Ernaux’s memoir A Girls’ Story (2020), and conceptualizing affect as working both within and beyond interpretive frames, this chapter presents three useful concepts when exploring affect and gender-based violence: event, atmosphere, and affective memory. Event refers to both dramatic experiences and the “silent cracks” that may materialize in connection with violence; both enable becoming-other and disintegration of sense. Atmosphere is a concept that stresses how collective, spatial moods may envelop both the violent event and the response from the relational setting. Finally, the chapter foregrounds the concept of affective memory to show how traumatic experiences may, at times, reside in our bodies and continue to affect us no matter how we comprehend the event.

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• "It’s not just dad who’s got problems": Feminist phenomenology and young men’s violence against women

  2023. Kalle Berggren, Lucas Gottzén. Men and Masculinities

  Artikel

  Research on men who have been violent against women has often shown how these men justify or excuse their violence, minimize their responsibility, as well as construct dominant forms of masculinity. However, as attitudes in support of intimate partner violence are declining around the world, we might expect perpetrators to become less self-righteous and more self-critical about their violence. This article reports data from a qualitative interview study with 14 young partner-violent men in Sweden. While our participants sometimes downplayed their responsibility, more often they condemned violence in intimate relationships, and reflected upon the place of violence in their lives. This included experiences of domestic violence as children, as well as their processes of moving away from violence. Drawing on feminist readings of phenomenology, particularly Heidegger, we suggest that phenomenological conceptualizations of embodiment, consciousness and practice are helpful in understanding the experiences of partner-violent men.

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• Queering desistance: Chrononormativity, afterwardsness and young men’s sexual intimate partner violence

  2020. Kalle Berggren, Lucas Gottzén, Hanna Bornäs. Criminology & Criminal Justice 20 (5), 604-616

  Artikel

  Queer criminology has primarily focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people as victims and perpetrators of crime, as well as on the criminalization of non-heterosexual practices. In this article, we contribute to the emerging discussions on how queer theory can be used in relation to criminological research by exploring desistance processes from a queer temporality perspective. Desistance research emphasizes how and why individuals cease offending and is often guided by a teleology in which individuals are expected to mature and develop new, non-criminal identities. Work on queer temporality, in contrast, has developed thinking that destabilizes chronology and troubles normative life trajectories. In this article, we draw on queer temporality perspectives, particularly the concepts of chrononormativity and afterwardsness, in analysing narratives of young men who have used sexual violence against women partners in Sweden. We demonstrate how criminal identities may develop in retrospect, after desisting, and that identity and behaviour may not necessarily go together.

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• Chafing masculinity: Heterosexual violence and young men’s shame

  2019. Lucas Gottzén. Feminism and Psychology 29 (2), 286-302

  Artikel

  The role of shame in feminist activism has been debated lately, where scholars particularly have discussed whether shame could enable individuals with privileged positions, such as heterosexual men, to align with vulnerable groups or prevent them from political action. Drawing on written stories submitted to a feminist anti-violence campaign, this paper explores young men's shame of having been sexist or sexually violent. Through displaying shame, they distance themselves from problematic past violent or sexist actions, producing or reconstructing a respectable masculine subjectivity. In their narratives, the young men at times embrace and adopt a "chafing masculinity", that is, an uncomfortable and troubling heteromasculine position. Drawing on these narratives, the paper discusses how shame - by exposing heterosexual men's uncontrolled discomfort and helping men to unlearn privilege - may be a politically progressive emotion and contribute to pro-feminist politics.

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• Men, masculinities and intimate partner violence

  2021. .

  Bok (red)

  Men, Masculinities and Intimate Partner Violence examines how gender and other social identities and inequalities shape experiences of, and responses to, violence in intimate relationships. It provides new insights into men as both perpetrators and victims of violence, as well as on how to involve men and boys in anti-violence work.

  The chapters explore partner violence from the perspectives of researchers, therapists, activists, organisations, media as well as men of different background and sexual orientation. Highlighting the distinct and ambivalent ways we relate to violence and masculinity, this timely volume provides nuanced approaches to men, masculinity and intimate partner violence in various societies in the global North and South.

  This book foregrounds scholarship on men and masculinities in the context of intimate partner violence. By doing so, it revitalises feminist theorising and research on partner abuse, and brings together the fields of masculinity studies and studies of intimate partner violence. The book will be a vital resource for students and scholars in criminology, gender studies, psychology, social work and sociology, as well as those working with men and boys.

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• Sociologins teoretiker

  2021. .

  Bok (red)

  Sociologi är studiet av samhället och människan i samhället. Med sociologins hjälp kan vi förstå hur människor ser på sig själva, hur de relaterar till varandra, hur de organiserar sig och hur samhället förändras. Vi kan också lära oss hur sociala problem skapas och hur ojämlikhet och förtryck reproduceras. Att studera sociologi innebär att hela tiden ha blicken riktad åt två håll: utåt mot pågående sociala förändringar, och inåt mot de teorier och begrepp som utvecklats inom sociologin. Ämnet har en lång och rik idétradition. Alltsedan sociologin växte fram som en egen disciplin under 1800-talet har enskilda tänkare och teoretiker varit viktiga för utvecklandet av begrepp och tankemodeller. För att förstå och tillägna sig dessa begrepp och modeller krävs oftast kunskap om respektive tänkares hela teoribygge. Sociologins teoretiker presenterar sjutton tänkare som har varit, och är, avgörande för sociologin. I varje kapitel beskrivs och diskuteras de centrala teorierna och begreppen hos en enskild tänkare, liksom teoretikerns betydelse för sociologin i dag. 

  I denna andra upplaga har samtliga kapitel uppdaterats med nya referenser och forskning. Dessutom har tre nya kapitel tillkommit med samtida teoretiker.

  Boken vänder sig främst till studenter inom sociologi och andra samhälls- och beteendevetenskaper som möter sociologisk teori för första gången.

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• Genus

  2020. Mia Eriksson, Lucas Gottzén.

  Bok

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• Routledge International Handbook of Masculinity Studies

  2020. .

  Bok (red)

  The Routledge International Handbook of Masculinity Studies provides a contemporary critical and scholarly overview of theorizing and research on masculinities as well as emerging ideas and areas of study that are likely to shape research and understanding of gender and men in the future. 

  The forty-eight chapters of the handbook take an interdisciplinary approach to a range of topics on men and masculinities related to identity, sex, sexuality, culture, aesthetics, technology and pressing social issues. The handbook’s transnational lens acknowledges both the localities and global character of masculinity. A clear message in the book is the need for intersectional theorizing in dialogue with feminist, queer and sexuality studies in making sense of men and masculinities.

  Written in a clear and direct style, the handbook will appeal to students, teachers and researchers in the social sciences and humanities, as well as professionals, practitioners and activists.

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• Av det känsligare slaget: Män och våld mot kvinnor

  2019. Lucas Gottzén.

  Bok

  Mäns våld handlar om känslor. Våldsamma män är förbannade, kåta, irriterade och frustrerade. De utsatta kvinnorna och barnen lever i rädsla för att det kan hända igen. Men våldet rör också upp känslor hos andra. När mäns våld diskuteras i tidningar, tv och sociala medier framstår de män som utövar våld som motbjudande. De är värda vårt hat och vår avsky. De är kvinnomisshandlare, våldtäktsmän och tafsande killar på festivaler.   

  Denna bok bygger på mäns och killars berättelser om sitt fysiska och sexuella våld. Den ger unika inblickar i hur de tänker kring våldet, deras skam och rädsla för vad andra ska tycka, deras frustration och ilska när de blir uthängda som våldsverkare. Boken analyserar också hur mäns våld förstås i medier, inom politiken och bland unga.   

  Ett centralt tema är hur våldsamma män förstås som något annorlunda än vanliga, hederliga, jämställda unga killar och familjefäder. Boken handlar också om vad våldsamma män kan lära oss om föreställningar om manlighet. Om att gränsen mellan vi och dem kanske inte är så skarp, och att vi alla är en del av att upprätthålla en kultur där mäns våld mot kvinnor kan fortsätta, trots att det fördöms.    

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Visa alla publikationer av Lucas Gottzén vid Stockholms universitet