Runchao Liu
Assistant Professor
Mass Communications Building, 2490 S. Gaylord St. Denver, CO 80210
What I do
Runchao Liu is an assistant professor in the Department of Media, Film, and Journalism Studies at the University of Denver. Bridging critical media studies, cultural studies, and global Asian and Asian American Studies, Liu's research examines the cultural politics of popular music, sound, and listening for how they intersect with social justice, identity, and affective politics through intersectional, intercultural, and mediated frameworks. Her publications address topics such as the racial and gender politics of rock and punk, transnationality of Chinese popular music, postfeminist sensibilities, intercultural complexity, protest music, and critical pedagogies of popular music. Advancing an intersectional sonic-affective framework, Liu's upcoming monograph brings together critical inquiries of music, affect, and identity by examining the voices and experiences of Asian American women in punk and rock music (as venue owners, zinesters, activist-musicians, filmmakers, and indie rockers), drawing on archival research, oral histories, and critical/cultural analyses of musical and media discourses from the 1960s to the present.At DU, Liu is affiliate faculty with several units, including Estlow International Center for Journalism and New Media; Critical Race and Ethnic Studies; Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies; Asian Studies; Center for Community Engagement to Advance Scholarship; Interdisciplinary Research Institute for the Study of (In)Equality. Before coming to DU, Liu taught at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and the University of Wyoming. They were a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies (2021-2022) and a visiting scholar with the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University (2021-2023). Liu currently serves as Chair (2026-2028) of the Division of Popular Media & Culture of the International Communication Association.
Degree(s)
- Ph.D., Critical Media Studies/Cultural Studies, University of Minnesota, 2021
- MA, Communication Studies, Shanghai International Studies University, 2016
- BA, English Language and Literature, Hebei University, 2013
Research
Journal Articles & Book Chapters
Liu, Runchao, and Jessica A. Schwartz. 2025. “Critical Popular Music Studies: Interrogating Methodological Meanings and Discursive Politics of the ‘Critical’ and ‘Popular’.” In The Intellect Handbook of Popular Music Methodologies, edited by Mike Dines, Shara Rambarran, and Gareth Dylan Smith, 20-33. Intellect. https://doi.org/10.1386/9781835951033_3.
Musleh, Samira, Runchao Liu, and Elja Roy. 2025. “Alien Academics: Colonial Social Mobility, Datafied Subjectivity, and White-Collar Indentured Servitude in U.S. Higher Education.” Journal of International and Intercultural Communication 18 (3): 215–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/17513057.2025.2522089.
Liu, Runchao. 2023. “Unconventionally Confrontational: Radicalized Asian Affects, Diasporic Aesthetics, and the Revival of Cambodian (American) Rock Music.” In The Bloomsbury Handbook of Music and Art, edited by Sarah Mahler Kraaz and Charlotte de Mille, 247-258. Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781501377747.ch-016.
Liu, Runchao. 2023. “The Oriental Riff.” In Sound Affects: A User’s Guide, edited by Sharon Jane Mee and Luke Robinson, 41-52. Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781501388910.0010.
Liu, Runchao. 2022. “Ethnic Rock or the Transcultural Logic of Hegemony: On Chinese Ethnic Rock Music (Minzu Yaogun).” In Critical Race Media Literacy: Themes and Strategies for Media Education, by Jayne Cubbage. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003182252-12.
Liu, Runchao. 2022. “Empowerment in the Pills: Reproductive Rights and Postfeminist Rage in Modern China.” In The Cultural Politics of Femvertising: Selling Empowerment, edited by Joel Gwynne, 55-73. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99154-8_4
Liu, Runchao. 2020. “Object-Oriented Diaspora Sensibilities, Disidentification, and Ghostly Performance.” M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 23 (5). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1685.
Liu, Runchao. 2019. “Visions of China: Avant-Orientalism, Art Rock, and Conflicted Otherness.” Cinéma & Cie: International Film Studies Journal, 19 (33): 107-20.
Edited Journal Issues & Introduction Essays
Liu, Runchao. 2022. “Teaching (with) Popular Music: Editor’s Introduction.” Teaching Media Quarterly, 10 (1): 1-3. Special issue: Teaching (with) Popular Music.
Trisler, Bree, Joshua Morrison, and Runchao Liu. 2021. “Editors’ Notes.” Teaching Media Quarterly 9 (1): 1-3. Special issue: Teaching Media in a Pandemic.
Commentaries & Book Reviews
Liu, Runchao. 2022. “Crying in H Mart.” Journal of Popular Music Studies, 34 (1): 167-69.
Liu, Runchao. 2021. “Digital Mediation and Transnational Flows of Queer Fandom: Ambiguous Queer Performance on Chinese Social Media,” Critical Asian Studies. https://doi.org/10.52698/ROFP3956.
Liu, Runchao. 2020. “Popular Music and the Politics of Hope: Queer and Feminist Interventions.” Current Musicology, 106 (Spring): 9-17.
Liu, Runchao. 2019. “Rhetorics of Whiteness: Postracial Hauntings in Popular Culture, Social Media, and Education.” Communication Booknotes Quarterly, 50 (4): 175-77.
Liu, Runchao, and Jessica A. Schwartz. 2025. “Critical Popular Music Studies: Interrogating Methodological Meanings and Discursive Politics of the ‘Critical’ and ‘Popular’.” In The Intellect Handbook of Popular Music Methodologies, edited by Mike Dines, Shara Rambarran, and Gareth Dylan Smith, 20-33. Intellect. https://doi.org/10.1386/9781835951033_3.
Musleh, Samira, Runchao Liu, and Elja Roy. 2025. “Alien Academics: Colonial Social Mobility, Datafied Subjectivity, and White-Collar Indentured Servitude in U.S. Higher Education.” Journal of International and Intercultural Communication 18 (3): 215–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/17513057.2025.2522089.
Liu, Runchao. 2023. “Unconventionally Confrontational: Radicalized Asian Affects, Diasporic Aesthetics, and the Revival of Cambodian (American) Rock Music.” In The Bloomsbury Handbook of Music and Art, edited by Sarah Mahler Kraaz and Charlotte de Mille, 247-258. Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781501377747.ch-016.
Liu, Runchao. 2023. “The Oriental Riff.” In Sound Affects: A User’s Guide, edited by Sharon Jane Mee and Luke Robinson, 41-52. Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781501388910.0010.
Liu, Runchao. 2022. “Ethnic Rock or the Transcultural Logic of Hegemony: On Chinese Ethnic Rock Music (Minzu Yaogun).” In Critical Race Media Literacy: Themes and Strategies for Media Education, by Jayne Cubbage. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003182252-12.
Liu, Runchao. 2022. “Empowerment in the Pills: Reproductive Rights and Postfeminist Rage in Modern China.” In The Cultural Politics of Femvertising: Selling Empowerment, edited by Joel Gwynne, 55-73. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99154-8_4
Liu, Runchao. 2020. “Object-Oriented Diaspora Sensibilities, Disidentification, and Ghostly Performance.” M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 23 (5). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1685.
Liu, Runchao. 2019. “Visions of China: Avant-Orientalism, Art Rock, and Conflicted Otherness.” Cinéma & Cie: International Film Studies Journal, 19 (33): 107-20.
Edited Journal Issues & Introduction Essays
Liu, Runchao. 2022. “Teaching (with) Popular Music: Editor’s Introduction.” Teaching Media Quarterly, 10 (1): 1-3. Special issue: Teaching (with) Popular Music.
Trisler, Bree, Joshua Morrison, and Runchao Liu. 2021. “Editors’ Notes.” Teaching Media Quarterly 9 (1): 1-3. Special issue: Teaching Media in a Pandemic.
Commentaries & Book Reviews
Liu, Runchao. 2022. “Crying in H Mart.” Journal of Popular Music Studies, 34 (1): 167-69.
Liu, Runchao. 2021. “Digital Mediation and Transnational Flows of Queer Fandom: Ambiguous Queer Performance on Chinese Social Media,” Critical Asian Studies. https://doi.org/10.52698/ROFP3956.
Liu, Runchao. 2020. “Popular Music and the Politics of Hope: Queer and Feminist Interventions.” Current Musicology, 106 (Spring): 9-17.
Liu, Runchao. 2019. “Rhetorics of Whiteness: Postracial Hauntings in Popular Culture, Social Media, and Education.” Communication Booknotes Quarterly, 50 (4): 175-77.
