Book Launch – Researching Incels: A Critical Feminist Intervention

Book Launch – Researching Incels: A Critical Feminist Intervention

We are delighted to announce the launch of Researching Incels: A Critical Feminist Intervention, an exciting new Emerald title by Dr Stu Lucy, Dr. Frazer Heritage, and Prof. Lisa Sugiura. As the world wakes up to the incel problem following Netflix’s Adolescence, many examples of research into incels over the past decade have been poorly conducted. Researching Incels is a crucial intervention into problematic incel research – calling for a new framework for rigorous, responsible research to inform policy on the incel crisis.

Join us for a short panel discussion chaired by Professor Paul Smith, Head of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Portsmouth, followed by refreshments. The book’s authors will discuss their motivations for writing this book, personal experiences and reflections on engaging with poor incel research, and the wider implications this work can have on government policy and research funding allocations.

This is a hybrid event with a drinks reception to follow.

Date and time: Wednesday 27th May 2026, 4.30pm–6.00pm (UK time)
Format: Hybrid (in person and online)
Venue: Park Building, Room 1.09, University of Portsmouth, PO1 2DZ

Programme (approx. 1 hour):
– Opening remarks: Prof. Paul Smith (5 minutes)
– Panel discussion: Dr. Stu Lucy, Dr. Frazer Heritage, and Prof. Lisa Sugiura (30 minutes)
– Audience Q&A and closing (25 mins)

After the formal programme there will be a reception and networking for in-person attendees, with drinks. Registration is required for both in-person and online attendance.

The event is hosted by the University of Portsmouth’s Centre for Cybercrime and Economic Crime (CCEC).

Author Biographies

Dr Stu Lucy

Stu is an ESRC Research Fellow in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Portsmouth, UK. His work focuses on the journey young and adolescent men take into the incel community, and how third sector education interventions may provide preventative insulation of adolescents from the misogynistic ideology underpinning the incel identity. He has published in Men and Masculinities, Routledge handbooks on online deviance, and is currently working on a solo book, How to Make an Incel.

Dr Frazer Heritage

Frazer (he/they) is a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University UK, specializing in corpus linguistics, (critical) discourse studies, language, gender, and sexuality studies, videogame discourse (ludolinguistics), and the language of the manosphere. His academic background includes working within Linguistics, Psychology, Sociology, and Criminology. Frazer is the author of two full length monographs: Language, Gender and Videogames: Using Corpora to Analyse the Representation of Gender in Fantasy Videogames (Palgrave, 2021), and Incels and Ideologies: Exploring How Incels Use Language to Construct Gender and Race (Palgrave, 2023). Beyond these, they co-edited Analysing Representation: A Corpus and Discourse Textbook (Routledge, 2024) and are the co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Language and Masculinities (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

Prof Lisa Sugiura

Lisa (she/her) is Professor of Cybercrime and Gender in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Portsmouth, UK. Lisa is an internationally recognised expert in online gender-based violence. Her research projects, which include funding from the UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the Home Office, involve victims of computer misuse, the role of technology in domestic abuse, and extremist and misogynistic behaviours in manosphere and incel communities. Lisa has published on the online pharmaceutical trade, phishing, online research ethics and qualitative methodologies, rape culture, incels, and online misogyny. She is the author and co-editor of the books: Respectable deviance and purchasing medicine online: opportunities and risks for consumers Palgrave Macmillan, The incel rebellion: the rise of the manosphere and the virtual war against women Emerald publishing, and the Palgrave Handbook of Gendered Violence and Technology.

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