Professor Emeritus of Sociomedical Sciences and Anthropology

Special Lecturer and Special Research Scientist, Department of Sociomedical Sciences

Member, Committee on Global Thought

Richard Parker, Ph.D., is Special Research Scientist in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences in the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York City as well as President of the Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS Association (ABIA) in Rio de Janeiro.

He serves on the editorial board for a range of scholarly journals, including Archives of Sex Research, Sexualities, the Journal of Sex Research, Sexuality Research and Social Policy, Health and Human Rights and Interface, and is editor-in-chief for the journal, Global Public Health. Prior to joining the faculty at Columbia University, in the early 1990s, Dr. Parker was the founder and director of the Program in Gender, Sexuality and Health at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, which has been nationally and internationally recognized as the leading sexuality research and training program in Brazil.

His major publications include Bodies, Pleasures and Passions: Sexual Culture in Contemporary Brazil (1st ed: Boston: Beacon Press, 1991), Sexuality, Politics and AIDS in Brazil (written together with Herbert Daniel, London: The Falmer Press, 1993), Conceiving Sexuality: Approaches to Sex Research in a Postmodern World (edited together with John H. Gagnon, New York and London: Routledge, 1995), Beneath the Equator: Cultures of Desire, Male Homosexuality, and Emerging Gay Communities in Brazil (New York and London: Routledge, 1999), Culture, Society and Sexuality: A Reader (edited together with Peter Aggleton, London: UCL Press, 1999), Framing the Sexual Subject: The Politics of Gender, Sexuality and Power (edited together with Regina Maria Barbosa and Peter Aggleton, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2000), Love and Globalization: Transformations of Intimacy in the Contemporary World (edited together with Mark B. Padilla, Jennifer S. Hirsch, Miguel Muñoz-Laboy, and Robert E. Sember, Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2007), SexPolitics: Reports from the Front Lines (edited together with Sonia Corrêa and Robert Sember, Sexuality Policy Watch, 2007), and Sexuality, Health and Human Rights (edited together Sonia Corrêa with Rosalind Petchesky, New York and London: Routledge, 2008). A second edition of his book, Bodies, Pleasures and Passions: Sexual Culture in Contemporary Brazil is currently in press (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2009).

In 2002, Dr. Parker also founded, and has since co-chaired, Sexuality Policy Watch (formally named the International Working Group on Sexuality Research until 2006). He is also one of the Founding Editors of the journal Culture, Health & Sexuality, which began publication in 1999 and has become one of the leading international journals for sexuality research, with by far the most multi-cultural editorial board and publication record of any sexuality journal in the world.

Website

Select Publications

Select Honors and Awards

  • Award for Teaching Excellence, Class of 2004, Mailman School of Public Health
  • Ruth Benedict Prize, Outstanding Book of the Year (for Bodies, Pleasures and Passions: Sexual Culture in Contemporary Brazil, Society of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists (SOLGA), 1991

Education

  • Ph.D., University of California, 1988
  • M.A., University of California, 1981
  • B.A., University of California, 1980