XIE RENJIE researches how Chinese web novels and digital games reverse the Cold War-era “feedback loop” of knowledge production, practicing “counter-area studies” through decentralized digital circulation under platform capitalism.

In 2020, a Chinese web novel titled Lord of the Mysteries—which blends Lovecraftian horror with Victorian-era London setting and Chinese cultivation logic—amassed over 30 million fans globally on Webnovel’s international platform, with tens of thousands of English-speaking fans…