Mathew 骋补驳苍茅
Assistant Professor
Email: m.gagne@dal.ca
Mailing Address:
- Queerness and Sexuality
- Sex and Technology
- Digital Media
- Intimacy and Relationality
- Digital Labour
- Computational Culture
Education
路聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 BA, University of Winnipeg
路聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 MA, PhD, University of Toronto
Research Interests
Broadly speaking, my research interests are in how we connect differently in the digital age, and the effects of that difference on care, intimacy, ethics, meaning, desire, and even how we construct what the kinds of social lives and political conditions that are possible in the information age. Focusing on the minutia of our intimate lives, I aim to tell stories about the worlds that attachment and intimacy create, and the politics of these worlds in the form of emerging norms, ideals, and symbols for how we connect in the digital age. My SSHRC-funded project, entitled Gay Sex and Digital Media in Beirut: The Erotic Life of Information, explores the effects of sex apps like Grindr and Scruff within the intimate lives of queer men in Beirut. I show how digital media shifted he ideals and debates queer men had about what is sexually and intimately possible for queerness in Lebanon, particularly leading to new ideas about the political and social possibilities of sex as a route to happiness, fulfilment, and self-sovereignty over their intimate and social lives. Central is how queer men claimed new kinds of control over their intimate lives that rendered gay sex centre to everyday happiness and fulfilment. In contrast to anthropological theorizations of power, agency, and sovereignty, the control men claimed for themselves is not about exerting power over others or denying the interpersonal dependencies of intimacy but are about making happen those intimate connections and encounter they want most from multiple conversations and connections happening through sex apps. 聽
My new SSHRC-funded project continues exploring how digital technologies are reshaping connection but from the perspective of digital nomads in Mexico City, a metropolis offering access to the lifestyles that the creative cities of the global north have made unaffordable. Digital nomads are an emerging class of remote workers who work while experiencing the world through continuous travel. I posit that digital nomadism is more than just traveling while working, but about producing relations and connections that make life meaningful is new ways.
Selected Publications
Forthcoming聽聽 骋补驳苍茅, Mathew. 鈥淢ethodological Reflections on Studying Gay Sex in Beirut.鈥� In , Patrick Keilty (ed.). University of Washington Press..
2022聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 骋补驳苍茅, Mathew. 鈥淕ay Sex Apps and Heteronormative Masculinity in Beirut.鈥� In , L.L. Wynn and Angel M. Foster (eds.). Vanderbilt University Press.
2019 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 骋补驳苍茅, Mathew. 鈥淪tudying Gay Sex in Beirut: The Lascivious Suture of Home/Field.鈥� In , Johannes Lenhard and Farhan Samanani (eds). Bloomsbury.
2017聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 骋补驳苍茅, Mathew. 鈥淭oronto鈥檚 Geography of Gay Sex in the Digital Age鈥� In , Stephanie Chambers, Jane Farrow, Maureen Fitzgerald, Ed Jackson, John Lorinc, Tim McCaskell, Rebecka Sheffield, Tatum Taylor and Rahim Thawer (eds). Coach House Books.
2015聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 骋补驳苍茅, Mathew. 鈥�.鈥� Middle East Journal of Culture and Communications, 9(2): 165-181.
2012聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽 骋补驳苍茅, Mathew. 鈥�.鈥� Journal of Middle East Women鈥檚 Studies, Special edition: Queering Middle East Cyberspace, 8(3): 113-137.