Rate My Professor Lisa Hackett

Dr. Lisa Hackett is a Senior Lecturer in Cultural History in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Education at the University of New England. She completed her Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology at the University of New England in 2020, with a thesis investigating the reasons contemporary women choose to wear 1950s-style clothing. Her earlier qualifications include a Master of Business Administration from Murdoch University in 2006 and a Bachelor of Arts in Media Studies from Edith Cowan University in 1998. Hackett's research specializations include fashion, clothing, and uniforms in society and popular culture from historical and modern perspectives; royalty through fandom, social understandings, and cultural history; authenticity and accuracy in romance novel subgenres; crime in popular culture; aviation history; and popular culture broadly. Current projects encompass an analysis of Second World War-era uniforms worn by female pilots and their role in wartime propaganda, sartorial appropriation by fan communities in cinematic settings, and the semiotics of the British Royal Family in contemporary popular discourse. As co-founder of the UNE Popular Culture Research Network (PopCRN), she has organized more than 15 conferences, driving major academic collaborations, and currently supervises 10 higher degree research students.

In 2025, Hackett received the University of New England Early Career Researcher Award, acknowledging her rapid career advancement and exceptional scholarly productivity since her PhD, with over 40 peer-reviewed works and book chapters. Key publications feature forthcoming titles such as the co-authored book The British Royals in Popular Culture: From the Tudors to the Windsors (Routledge, June 2025) with Jo Coghlan and Huw Nolan; edited volumes The Barbie Phenomenon Volume I: Icon, Brand, Celebrity & Fandom and Volume II: Gender, Identity, Race and Sexuality (Routledge, September 2025); book chapters including “Killer Fashion: Clothes that Poison in Popular Culture” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025) and “The Bond Singer as Bond Girl: Nobody Does It Better” (Bloomsbury, 2026); and journal articles such as “The Women of the Air Transport Auxiliary in Second World War Newsreels” (Australian Journal of Politics & History, 2024), “Swimsuits as uniforms: Bodily transformation, control and transgression” (Clothing Cultures, 2023), “A Life in Uniform: The Public and Foreign Uniforms of Queen Elizabeth II, the Rainbow Queen” (Australasian Journal of Popular Culture, 2023), and “Historic British Royal Memes: Revealing the Popular Memory of Past Monarchs” (M/C Journal, 2024). She has served in editorial roles for special issues of M/C Journal, Clothing Cultures, and International Journal of James Bond Studies.