Tim Dean is a British philosopher and writer, notable in the field of contemporary queer theory

Queer theory

Queer theory is a field of critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of the fields of LGBT studies and feminist studies. Queer theory includes both queer readings of texts and the theorisation of 'queerness' itself...

. He is the author of Gary Snyder and the American Unconscious (1991), Beyond Sexuality (2000), and Unlimited Intimacy: Reflections on the Subculture of Barebacking (2009), all published by the University of Chicago Press, and the editor of Homosexuality and Psychoanalysis (2001).

Originally a British civil servant, Dean was educated at the University of East Anglia

University of East Anglia

The University of East Anglia is a public research university based in Norwich, United Kingdom. It was established in 1963, and is a founder-member of the 1994 Group of research-intensive universities.-History:...

 (BA in American Studies), Brandeis University

Brandeis University

Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...

, and Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins University

The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...

 (MA and PhD). He joined the The State University of New York

State University of New York

The State University of New York, abbreviated SUNY , is a system of public institutions of higher education in New York, United States. It is the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States, with a total enrollment of 465,000 students, plus...

 at Buffalo

Buffalo, New York

Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...

 in 2002 - where he is affiliated with the Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Culture, and the Department of Comparative Literature - after several years teaching at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) and the University of Washington

University of Washington

University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...

 (Seattle). Dean wrote an undergraduate dissertation on Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder is an American poet , as well as an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist . Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry...

 and a doctoral dissertation on Hart Crane

Hart Crane

-Career:Throughout the early 1920s, small but well-respected literary magazines published some of Crane’s lyrics, gaining him, among the avant-garde, a respect that White Buildings , his first volume, ratified and strengthened...

. He was also a Fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center from 1997-1998.