Lu Luo

Biography

Lu is a cultural studies student investigating at the intersections of popular culture, gender, sexuality, and transnational media with a special focus on contemporary East Asia, especially China. She works on two groups of youth subcultural communities on Sinophone social platforms, the online beauty communities and celebrity fandom. Specifically, she investigates how representational practices of makeup on social media afford young Chinese women new avenues for gender identity transformation. She also works on the politics of gender and sexuality within fandom, calling for reimagining fandom as an ambivalent site of identity exploration and negotiation.