Lingxiao Chen

Welcome! I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at Emory University. I am on the academic job market in Fall 2026.

My expertise rests in the areas of political sociology, cultural sociology, social psychology, and public opinion. I have strong training in both qualitative and quantitative methods, including in-depth interviewing, survey experiments, and archival research.

My core research examines how power operates through culture: how states and market actors embed political messages in everyday life, and how citizens interpret those messages across authoritarian and democratic contexts. My dissertation and book project, Nationalizing Stardom, traces this process in China’s transnational entertainment industry. The state enlists celebrities to amplify nationalist narratives; entertainment professionals translate broad political expectations into market strategies; and audiences judge celebrities’ statements and silences through competing frames of national belonging. Drawing on interviews with audiences and industry professionals, an original national survey with an embedded factorial experiment, and archival records of state directives, I follow nationalist messages as they are scripted in studios, staked on celebrity careers, and evaluated by publics. My dissertation has been funded by the Halle Institute for Global Research and Learning, the Institute for Humane Studies, and the OYCF-Chow Fellowship.

My sole-authored work has been published in the American Sociological Review, also receiving best graduate student paper awards from the ASA sections on Culture, Social Psychology, and Asia and Asian America. My collaborative research has appeared in Social Problems.

I received a B.A. in Sociology and Translation from the University of Hong Kong. I am a first-generation-to-college student.