Richard Ekins

A former jazz musician and current New Orleans jazz record producer for 504/La Croix Records, he took his Ll.B. Hons in Law at the University of Birmingham in 1966. In 1973 he began his PhD in Sociology on the philosopher and social psychologist George Herbert Mead, at the University of London, completing in 1978 following an extended period of study at the University of Chicago and with foremost Mead disciple David L. Miller at the University of Texas at Austin. In 1989 he obtained his M.Med.Sc.in Psychotherapy from Queen's University of Belfast, and in 1996 completed his training as a psychoanalyst with the British Psychoanalytical Society and International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA). In 2011 he completed an MA in Popular Music Studies in the School of Music, University of Liverpool, followed by a further two years of doctoral study in musicology and jazz studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Research: In the late 1970s, Richard Ekins was among the first in the world to pioneer a social constructionist (sociological) approach to the field of transgender, then dominated by medico-psychiatric approaches. He was founder and director of the Transgender Archive, Ulster University, 1986-2010. He has published eight books and over 180 articles and book chapters, including The Transgender Phenomenon (with Dave King), CHOICE MAGAZINE Outstanding Academic Title for 2007. As a psychoanalyst with some twenty years of clinical experience, he has made a substantial contribution to the field of psychoanalytic studies, in relation to contemporary developments within classical (Freudian) psychoanalysis, including his 2015, Penguin Modern Classics edition of Anna Freud: Selected Writings (with Ruth Freeman). Since 2005, he has revisited his earlier interests in ‘Early Jazz and New Orleans Jazz Revivalism’ and is publishing in that field in both academic journals and specialist jazz magazines, principally in relation to social constructions of ‘authenticity’. Since 2015, he has developed a research interest in Dorothy Richardson Studies and has published in that area. Most recently, he has completed The Politics of Authenticating: Revisiting New Orleans Jazz with his interlocutor Robert Porter for Rowman & Littlefield (Lexington). The second book in this series will be Psychoanalysis and the Politics of Authenticating, also with Robert Porter as his interlocutor. Meanwhile, he is completing two books to be published in association with Just Jazz magazine: The Genesis and Exodus of Preservation Hall: The Ken Grayson Mills Story and The Birthing of Preservation Hall: The Barbara Glancey Reid Story.

For website on 'Early Jazz and New Orleans Jazz Revivalism', see: www.lacroixrecords.com