Visiting Scholar at U.C. Berkeley this spring

Research:

My main focus is on the numerous amounts of video blogs (vlogs) on YouTube where trans people (using hormones and/or surgery to alter their body) document and discuss their gender transition. The transition is often articulated as a birth or re-birth signalling a new start in life and a new identity. I am engaging with these vlogs using “trans-“ in its many meanings and configurations as a frame. I am in particular interested in “trans-“ as an identity category (transgender/transsexual), as a movement of becoming (transformation), as humanity enhanced and mediated by technology (transhumanity) and as identity constructions and communication in the age of digitalisation where experiences are spread across national borders and across a variety of media platforms (transnationality and transmedia).

Keywords in my research: Transgender Studies, Queer Theory, Media Studies, Internet Research, Visual Culture Studies.