Week 7: Transformative Intimacy and Digital Worlding

Mandatory Reading

• Azuma, H. (2012). Database animals. In M. Ito, D. Okabe, & I. Tsuji (Eds.), Fandom unbound: Otaku culture in a connected world (pp. 30–67). Yale University Press.
• Galbraith, P. W. (2014). Otaku sexuality in Japan. In M. McLelland & V. Mackie (Eds.), Routledge handbook of sexuality studies in East Asia (pp. 205–217). Routledge.
• Ryan, M. L. (2015). Transmedia Storytelling: Industry Buzzword or New Narrative Experience? Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies, 7(2), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.5250/storyworlds.7.2.0001
• Ash, J., Kitchin, R., & Leszczynski, A. (2018). Digital turn, digital geographies? Progress in Human Geography, 42(1), 25-43. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132516664800

Further Reading

• Jenkins, H. (2008). Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (Revised edition). NYU Press.
• Jenkins, H. (2010). Transmedia Storytelling and Entertainment: An annotated syllabus. Continuum, 24(6), 943–958. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2010.510599
• Leszczynski, A., & Elwood, S. (2022). Glitch epistemologies for computational cities. Dialogues in Human Geography, 12(3), 361-378. https://doi.org/10.1177/20438206221075714
• Monea, A. (2022). The digital closet: How the internet became straight. The MIT Press. https://direct.mit.edu/books/book/5305/The-Digital-ClosetHow-the-Internet-Became-Straight

Rationale

This is probably my most radical take on the topic of "digital intimacies." In my master's thesis (2023) on a Chinese queer fan culture, I argue that "fetishism toward male images is not a straightforward substitution for reproductive heterosexuality." The queer desire to explore how "digital intimacies" broaden and transform our perception of the "intimate" aligns with the question of whether watching porn is not the equivalent of desiring real-world bodies, and whether "parasocial relationships" are not merely derivatives of "social relationships." While Baudrillard's theorizations of simulacra and stimulations remain relevant to many assumptions underlying the selected readings, this module refutes moralizing the phenomena at hand as "fake," "unauthentic," or "inferior." Instead, it adopts Mark Poster's (2013, 31) idea of "virtual reality," which both multiplies and problematizes what is "real" and forces us to look into how internet-born (dis)connectivity, sexualities, and socialities have expanded our understanding of (non)humanity, geography, and social justice.

The selected readings on the Japanese context reflect my research interests and training in Asian fan studies and seem distant from other sections of the syllabus. However, their investigation into the dynamic topology between the virtual and real foregrounds and proves crucial to many debates in discussions around digital intimacy today. One particular question asked in Galbraith's (2014) is, while we may all agree that porn involving real-world minors should be deemed illegal, what about child pornography not involving them in the form of manga and anime? And what is at stake here? Navigating the thin line between the real and the virtual, in the age of OnlyFans entrepreneurship and AI-backed eroticism, is becoming increasingly relevant for everyone working on the intersection of the digital and the intimate.