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 research employs feminist and digital ethnographic methodologies to explore young people’s vernacular uses of digital media, particularly in the context of mainland China. I have a keen interest in feminist and queer theory, affect theory, and critical theories of digital media. My research outputs have been featured in peer-reviewed journals and high-profile edited volumes. My first book, forthcoming with the University of Exeter Press, explores the ordinary voices and everyday participation in digital feminisms in China following the Chinese MeToo movement.

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 2026-27 I am teaching:

• STA7009 Digital Global Audiences and Participatory Culture
• STA7008 Digital Methods and Ethics in Digital Media and Cultures
• STA7001 Personalised Media and the Digital Self

In the past I have also taught on:

• SML5213 Postsocialist Intimacies: Gender and Sexual Politics in Contemporary China
• LIB5054 Cultural Encounters in Theory and Practice
• 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, sexuality and intimacies
• Digital feminisms and digital activism
• Affect theory

Publications

Xie, X. (2026). (Dis)embodied feminist rage and the affective economies of postdigital visibility. In A. Evans, J. Hakim, A. Dobson, S. McGlotten, & J. Ringrose (Eds.), Postdigital Intimacies: Relational lives in the networked public-private (pp. 157-175). UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781806550531

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