Dr Eva Li

Profile

I am a global media and cultural researcher with research interests in fandom and audiences, East Asian popular culture, gender and sexuality, intimacy, transnational feminism, and queer Asian studies.

My research interests focus on two inter-related areas: (1) East Asian media and culture and (2) gender and sexuality, through the lens of the multi-directional flows of transnational and regional popular culture, audience participation (or non-participation), and everyday practices.

I am interested in understanding the interplay between media texts, audiences, producers, and the process of consumption and appropriation. My research aims to investigate the ways in which power operates in everyday social interactions and through structural inequality by examining both on-screen representations and lived experiences. In spite of the increasingly diverse gender and sexual representations in East Asia, I am keen to study the ways in which these visual representations have (or have not) empowered audiences, influenced individual gender and sexual practices, and transformed structural inequalities. My methods are qualitative, ethnographic, and empirical.

I am happy to supervise PhD students interested in the intersections between any of the following: gender, sexuality, and intimacy; fandom and participatory culture; transnational and Asian popular culture; queer politics and sexual citizenship.