This episode we speak with Dr. Tingting Liu, discussing her research as a cultural anthropologist examining digital intimacies, gender, platforms and gaming in China. It is part 2 of a special 6-episode Season of Keywords in Play, exploring intersections and exchanges between Chinese and Australian game studies scholarship. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Dr Tingting Liu is an Associate Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Jinan University, China. She received her PhD in anthropology from the University of Queensland in 2018. Dr. Liu used to serve as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University, as well as a part-time lecturer at the University of Sydney. Dr. Liu’s research interests centre on digital media, video games, gender, sexuality, and their intersections. Her pioneering research on Chinese digital games has been published in leading international journals, including Games & Cultures, Information, Communication & Society, and Television & New Media.
The podcast series is part of Engaging Influencers initiative. This initiative is curated by the Australia Council for the Arts and funded by the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations
As a joint venture, “Keywords in Play” expands Critical Distance’s commitment to innovative writing and research about games while using a conversational style to bring new and diverse scholarship to a wider audience.
Our goal is to highlight the work of graduate students, early career researchers and scholars from under-represented groups, backgrounds and regions. The primary inspiration comes from sociologist and critic Raymond Williams. In the Preface to his book Keywords: a vocabulary of culture and society, Williams envisaged not a static dictionary but an interactive document, encouraging readers to populate blank pages with their own keywords, notes and amendments. “Keywords in Play” follows Williams in affirming that “The significance is in the selection”, and works towards diversifying the critical terms with which we describe games and game culture.
Please consider supporting Critical Distance at https://www.patreon.com/critdistance
Interviewer: Hugh Davies
Production Team: Darshana Jayemanne, Emilie Reed, Zoyander Street
Audio Direction and Engineering: Damian Stewart
Double Bass: Aaron Stewart
Special Thanks: Mahli-Ann Butt, Chloe Yan Li