Dr Xumeng Xie

Profile

I hold a PhD in the field of Digital Media and Culture from the Institute of Education, University College London, where I also contributed to teaching and supervision at postgraduate level across various Departments. My PhD research mainly focuses on how Chinese girls and young women experience gender and sexuality and engage in digital feminist politics of consciousness raising, knowledge production and community building on the Chinese platform Weibo.

Theoretically I draw from feminist and queer theory, affect theory and critical theory of digital media to understand the affective and emotional fabrics of digital communication and dynamics of digital worldmaking. I am interested in the use of feminist participatory methods and digital ethnography in researching young people and digital media and cultures, particularly in the context of mainland China.

I also hold a MA in Media and Cultural Analysis from Loughborough University and a BA in Chinese Language and Literature from Hunan Normal University, where I received training as a Chinese teacher.

Teaching

In 2024-25 I am teaching:

• LIB5054 Cultural Encounters in Theory and Practice
• SML5213/SML6213 Postsocialist Intimacies: Gender and Sexual Politics in Contemporary China

In the past I have also taught on:

• SML4006 Culture and Language
• RUS5067/RUS6067 Culture and Revolution: Russia and China (co-teach with Prof Jeremy Hicks)
• CHI4001 Deconstructing 'China' in the Western Imagination

Research

Research Interests:

• Digital media and cultures
• Gender and queer politics in postsocialist China
• Digital activism and networked counterpublics
• Affect, intimacies and social media

Publications

Xie, X. (2023). The (im)possibilities of queer girlhoods: Chinese girls negotiating queerness and filial piety. Global Studies of Childhood, 13(2), 116–130. https://doi.org/10.1177/20436106231177876

Xie, X., Cambazoglu, I., Ringrose, J., & Berger Correa, B. (2022). Anti-feminist Misogynist Shitposting: The Challenge of Feminist Academics Navigating Toxic Twitter. In P. J. Burke, J. Coffey, R. Gill, & A. Kanai (Eds.), Gender in an Era of Post-Truth Populism: Pedagogies, Challenges and Strategies (pp. 131–156). Bloomsbury. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350194625.ch-007

Berger-Correa, B., Ringrose, J., Xie, X., & Cambazoglu, I. (2022). Mapping affective circuits of a Twitter trolling attack against feminist arts-based pedagogy during the COVID-19 global pandemic. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 0(0), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2022.2098410