{"id":17,"date":"2026-10-07T18:35:36","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T18:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/josefnguyen.net\/?page_id=17"},"modified":"2026-10-08T13:09:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T13:09:18","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/josefnguyen.net\/","title":{"rendered":"about"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-794e3cfa wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:66.66%\">\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Hi! My name is Josef Nguyen (he\/him\/his), and I&#8217;m an associate professor in the Department of Film, Television, and Media and in the Department of Women&#8217;s and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan. I&#8217;m also a faculty affiliate of the Digital Studies Institute, the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, as well as of the Science, Technology, and Society Program. I received my Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Davis (2016) and my M.S. in Information and Computer Science from the University of California, Irvine (2009). Prior to joining the University of Michigan, I was an associate professor of Critical Media Studies at The University of Texas at Dallas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">My work engages media studies, science and technology studies, and feminist and queer theory to investigate the contested meanings of technological labor and design in digital culture, with particular attention to:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:33.33%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"847\" src=\"https:\/\/josefnguyen.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/josefnguyen_headshot.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18\" srcset=\"https:\/\/josefnguyen.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/josefnguyen_headshot.png 800w, https:\/\/josefnguyen.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/josefnguyen_headshot-283x300.png 283w, https:\/\/josefnguyen.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/josefnguyen_headshot-768x813.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">consent and\/as digital technology<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">creative labor and the creative economy<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">sex, intimacy, and technology<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">feminist, queer, and trans gaming<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">DIY, craft, and maker cultures<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"has-medium-font-size\">fan media and fandom practices<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-794e3cfa wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:66.66%\">\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">My first book, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/josefnguyen.net\/index.php\/publications\/the-digital-is-kid-stuff\/\">The Digital Is Kid Stuff: Making Creative Laborers for a Precarious Economy<\/a><\/em> (<a href=\"https:\/\/z.umn.edu\/kidstuff\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">University of Minnesota Press<\/a>, December 2021), explores how youth are instrumental to the creative economy not solely as the future labor force but also as cultural sites for mediating the political, economic, and ideological meanings of a precarious creative economy itself. Investigating the digital game <em>Minecraft<\/em>, <em>Make<\/em> magazine, the social media platform Instagram, and the speculative technological practice of design fiction, this book argues that U.S. culture negotiates the meanings of emerging digital media technologies and increasing economic precarity under neoliberalism through images of creative digital youth. <em>The Digital Is Kid Stuff<\/em> received the <a href=\"https:\/\/culturalstudiesassociation.org\/conference\/prizes-and-grants\/first-book-prize\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2022 First Book Prize from the Cultural Studies Association<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;m completing a second book, tentatively titled <em>Click to Agree: Sex, Software, and the Terms and Conditions of Digital Consent<\/em>, which is on the cultural politics of consent in emerging digital technologies\u2014including consent-recording mobile applications, dating simulator games, and sex robots. In this book, I interrogate both ways in which consent is designed into and conceptualized through digital technologies as well as how consent itself operates culturally as a kind of digital technology that shapes and regulates subjects, relations, and desires under dominant systems and ideologies of difference and power. <em>Click to Agree<\/em> is under advance contract with University of Minnesota Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Currently, I&#8217;m serving as the Production Editor for <em><a href=\"https:\/\/jcmsjournal.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies<\/a><\/em> until October 2027.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:33.33%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/josefnguyen.net\/index.php\/publications\/the-digital-is-kid-stuff\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"388\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/josefnguyen.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/digital_is_kid_stuff_cover.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19\" srcset=\"https:\/\/josefnguyen.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/digital_is_kid_stuff_cover.jpg 388w, https:\/\/josefnguyen.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/digital_is_kid_stuff_cover-194x300.jpg 194w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 388px) 100vw, 388px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi! My name is Josef Nguyen (he\/him\/his), and I&#8217;m an associate professor in the Department of Film, Television, and Media and in the Department of Women&#8217;s and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan. I&#8217;m also a faculty affiliate of the Digital Studies Institute, the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, as well as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-17","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/josefnguyen.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/josefnguyen.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/josefnguyen.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josefnguyen.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josefnguyen.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/josefnguyen.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70,"href":"https:\/\/josefnguyen.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17\/revisions\/70"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/josefnguyen.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}