Chris K. K. Tan, PhD
College of Arts and Sciences
Associate Professor
Biography
Dr. Chris K. K. Tan is an Assistant Professor (Social Sciences). Trained as an anthropologist, he is originally from Singapore. He received his education from the National University of Singapore, Yale University, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to VinUniversity, he worked at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore; Shandong University and Nanjing University in China; and Singapore Management University. He also did a research stint at the Institute of Ethnology at Academia Sinica in Taipei. Dr. Tan has inter-disciplinary research interests. At first, he examined how the politics of national belonging intersect with gender and sexuality. His monograph, entitled Stand Up for Singapore? National Belonging among Gay Men in the Lion City, is based on this research. During his years in China, Dr. Tan shifted to his current interests in the political economy of digital labor, especially in live-streaming. These interests are now moving towards the anthropology of big data.
· Live-streaming
· Cell phones
· Popular cultural fandoms
· Anthropology of Big Data
· Neoliberalism
· Gender
· Sexuality
· China
· Singapore
Courses
· COMM3020: Social Media Management
· COMM3090: New Media Futures
Areas of Interests
· Digital labor
· New media technologies
· Gender and sexuality in new media
· Neoliberalism
· East Asia
· Southeast Asia
- Chris K. K. Tan, and Miao Li. 2025b. Digital fandoms and the 227 Incident: A case of “cancel culture with Chinese characteristics.” The China Quarterly 262: 515–530.
- Chris K. K. Tan, and Yaxuan Wang. 2025a. Neoliberal feminism and work-family tensions among professional women in Beijing. Critical Asian Studies 57(1): 119–136.
- Liu, Tingting, Chris K. K. Tan, Xiaobing Yang, and Miao Li. 2023. Zhibo gonghui: China’s “live-streaming guilds” of manipulation experts. Information, Communication & Society 26(6): 1210–1225.
- Tan, Chris K. K. 2022c. Stand up for Singapore? National belonging among gay men in the Lion City. Abingdon, UK; New York: Routledge.
- Tan, Chris K. K., Tingting Liu, and Xiaoya Kong. 2022b. The emergent masculinities and gendered frustrations of male live-Streamers in China. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 66(2): 257–277.
- Tan, Chris K. K., and Zhiwei Xu. 2022a. The real digital househusbands of China: The alienable affects of China’s male “virtual lovers”. Journal of Consumer Culture 22(1): 3–20.
- Tan, Chris K. K., Tingting Liu, and Xiaojun Gao. 2021b. Becoming “pet slaves” in urban China: Transspecies urban theory, single professional women, and their companion animals. Urban Studies 58(16): 3371–3387.
- Tan, Chris K. K., and Jiayu Shi. 2021a. Virtually girlfriends: “Emergent femininity” and the women who buy virtual loving services in China. Information, Communication & Society 24(15): 2229–2244.
- Tan, Chris K. K., and Zhiwei Xu. 2020c. Virtually boyfriends: The affective labor of male virtual lovers in China. Information, Communication & Society 23(11): 1555–1569.
- Tan, Chris K. K., Jie Wang, Shengyuan Wangzhu, Jinjing Xu, and Chunxuan Zhu. 2020b. The real digital housewives of China’s Kuaishou video-sharing and live-streaming app. Media, Culture & Society 42(7-8): 1243–1259.
- Li, Miao, Chris K. K. Tan, and Yuting Yang. 2020a. Shehui ren: Cultural production and rural youths’ use of the Kuaishou video-sharing app in eastern China. Information, Communication & Society. 23(10): 1499–1514.
- PhD in Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- MA in East Asian Studies, Yale University
- BA (Hons) in Geography, National University of Singapore
