Amin Ghaziani is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Before arriving at UCSB, he was a Professor of Sociology and Canada Research Chair in Urban Sexualities at the University of British Columbia. He received a Ph.D. in a joint program in sociology and organization behavior from Northwestern University, after which he was awarded a three-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Princeton Society of Fellows.

 

An internationally recognized expert in the sociology of sexualities, culture, and the city, Prof. Ghaziani investigates how queer life takes shape and changes form in urban environments, from the transformation of historically gay neighborhoods to the rise of underground and nomadic nightlife scenes. His award-winning books—The Dividends of Dissent (Chicago), A Decade of HAART (Oxford), Sex Cultures (Polity), Imagining Queer Methods (NYU), There Goes the Gayborhood? (Princeton) and Long Live Queer Nightlife (Princeton)—examine how LGBTQ+ communities navigate spatial politics, belonging, and collective identities in the face of gentrification, mainstream acceptance, heteronormativity, and homonormativity.  

 

Prof. Ghaziani’s scholarship is widely cited, deeply empirical, and animated by a commitment to public sociology. His research has appeared in leading journals like American Sociological Review, Annual Review of Sociology, Demography, Social Problems, Theory and Society, and Urban Studies, and featured in media outlets like The New Yorker, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, NPR, and the BBC. He currently serves as co-editor of Contexts, the public-facing magazine of the American Sociological Association. Through his writings, teaching, and community engagements, Prof. Ghaziani advances a vision of sociology that is at once intellectually rigorous and socially responsive.

 

Select article publications:

 

Ghaziani, Amin. 2025. “The Sociology of Queer Nightlife.” The Sociological Quarterly.

 

Ghaziani, Amin and Jorge Ochoa. 2025. “Color Outside the Lines: Methodological Invitations from the Study of Queer Nightlife.” Sex & Sexualities.

 

Ghaziani, Amin. 2025. “The Cultural Field of Queer Nightlife: Organizations, Artists, and Curatorial Activism.” The Sociological Quarterly. 

 

Holmes, Andy and Amin Ghaziani. 2025. “Situational Fluidity and the Use of Identity Labels in Interactions.” Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World.

 

Yang, Tori Shucheng and Amin Ghaziani. 2024. “Retheorizing Intersectional Identities with the Study of Chinese LGBTQ+ Migrants.” Social Problems.

 

Spring, Amy and Amin Ghaziani. 2024. “New Evidence from Census 2020 on the Residential Segregation of Same-Sex Households: A Research Note.” Demography. 

 

Ghaziani, Amin and Seth Abrutyn. 2024. “Renewal Without Replication: Expanding Durkheim’s Theory of Disruptions via Queer Nightlife.” British Journal of Sociology. 

 

Ghaziani, Amin and Andy Holmes. 2023. “Distinguishing But Not Defining: How Ambivalence Affects Contemporary Identity Disclosures.” Theory and Society.

 

Stillwagon, Ryan and Amin Ghaziani. 2019. “Queer Pop-Ups: A Cultural Innovation in Urban Life.” City & Community.

 

Ghaziani, Amin. 2019. “Cultural Archipelagos: New Directions for the Study of Sexuality and Space.” City & Community.

 

Brodyn, Adriana and Amin Ghaziani. 2018. “Performative Progressiveness: Accounting for New Forms of Inequality in the Gayborhood.” City & Community.

 

Brim, Matt and Amin Ghaziani. 2016. “Introduction: Queer Methods.” WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly.

 

Ghaziani, Amin; Verta Taylor; and Amy Stone. 2016. “Cycles of Sameness and Difference in LGBT Social Movements.” Annual Review of Sociology.

 

Ghaziani, Amin. 2015. “‘Gay Enclaves Face Prospect of Being Passé’: How Assimilation Affects the Spatial Expressions of Sexuality in the United States.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.

 

Ghaziani, Amin. 2014. “Measuring Urban Sexual Cultures.” Theory and Society.

 

Mohr, John and Amin Ghaziani. 2014. “Problems and Prospects of Measurement in the Study of Culture.” Theory and Society.

 

Ghaziani, Amin and Delia Baldassarri. 2011. “Cultural Anchors and the Organization of Differences: A Multi-Method Analysis of LGBT Marches on Washington.” American Sociological Review.

 

Ghaziani, Amin. 2011. “Post-Gay Collective Identity Construction.” Social Problems.

 

Ghaziani, Amin. 2009. “An ‘Amorphous Mist’? The Problem of Measurement in the Study of Culture.” Theory and Society.

 

Morris, Aldon and Amin Ghaziani. 2005. “DuBoisan Sociology: A Watershed of Professional and Public Sociology.” Souls.