Welcome! My name is Kishonna Gray and I am currently an Assistant Professor in Communication and Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. I am also a Faculty Associate at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.
I previously served as an MLK Scholar and Assistant Professor at MIT in the Women & Gender Studies Program. Preview more information about this appointment HERE. I have also served as a Faculty Visitor at the Social Media Collective at Microsoft Research (Cambridge).
My work broadly intersects identity and digital media although I have a particular focus on video games and gaming culture. By examining game context and culture, my most recent book, Race, Gender, & Deviance in Xbox Live examines the reality of women and people of color in one of the largest gaming communities. My upcoming book project, tentatively titled "On Being Black And....In Contemporary Gaming Culture: The Journey to Intersectionality" features data from my (almost) 10 year ethnographic project on Xbox Live. It is currently under contract at LSU Press.
I have published in a variety of outlets, both academic and public. My interdisciplinary work has been featured in the Sociology Compass, Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology, ADA: A Journal of New Media and Technology, the Bulletin of Science, Technology, & Society, the New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, and others.
My work has also been featured in the LA Times, New York Times, Paste Magazine, Engadget, The Guardian, BET, and Blavity. I am a featured blogger and podcaster with "Not Your Mama's Gamer."
You can also preview my digital ratchet-ness HERE.
Connect and follow me on social media using the icons above.
Feel free to contact me for speaking engagements, guest lectures, consultation work, collaborations, or just to chat.
I'm friendly! Even if you troll me! Hehehe!
I previously served as an MLK Scholar and Assistant Professor at MIT in the Women & Gender Studies Program. Preview more information about this appointment HERE. I have also served as a Faculty Visitor at the Social Media Collective at Microsoft Research (Cambridge).
My work broadly intersects identity and digital media although I have a particular focus on video games and gaming culture. By examining game context and culture, my most recent book, Race, Gender, & Deviance in Xbox Live examines the reality of women and people of color in one of the largest gaming communities. My upcoming book project, tentatively titled "On Being Black And....In Contemporary Gaming Culture: The Journey to Intersectionality" features data from my (almost) 10 year ethnographic project on Xbox Live. It is currently under contract at LSU Press.
I have published in a variety of outlets, both academic and public. My interdisciplinary work has been featured in the Sociology Compass, Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology, ADA: A Journal of New Media and Technology, the Bulletin of Science, Technology, & Society, the New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, and others.
My work has also been featured in the LA Times, New York Times, Paste Magazine, Engadget, The Guardian, BET, and Blavity. I am a featured blogger and podcaster with "Not Your Mama's Gamer."
You can also preview my digital ratchet-ness HERE.
Connect and follow me on social media using the icons above.
Feel free to contact me for speaking engagements, guest lectures, consultation work, collaborations, or just to chat.
I'm friendly! Even if you troll me! Hehehe!
Follow me on Twitter @KishonnaGray |
CHECK OUT MY MOST RECENT BOOK
Race, Gender, & Deviance in Xbox Live
Race, Gender, and Deviance in Xbox Live provides a much-needed theoretical framework for examining deviant behavior and deviant bodies within one of the largest virtual gaming communities—Xbox Live. Previous research on video games has focused mostly on violence and examining violent behavior resulting from consuming this medium. This limited scope has skewed criminologists' understanding of video games and video game culture. Xbox Live has proven to be more than just a gaming platform for users. It has evolved into a multimedia entertainment outlet for more than 20 million users. This book examines the nature of social interactions within Xbox Live, which are often riddled with deviant behavior, including but not limited to racism and sexism. The text situates video games within a hegemonic framework deploying whiteness and masculinity as the norm. The experiences of the marginalized bodies are situated within the framework of deviance as they fail to conform to the hegemonic norm and become victims of racism, sexism, and other types of harassment. |
