Tom Boellstorff

Concerned citizen, Educator/Teacher, Gay, Global soul, Idea generator, World traveler, Writer/Editor

Tom Boellstorff is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. A Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Boellstorff is the author of The Gay Archipelago (Princeton University Press), A Coincidence of Desires (Duke University Press), and Coming of Age in Second Life (Princeton University Press). They are also coauthor of Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method (Princeton University Press) and the forthcoming Intelligent Visions: The Intellivision System, Videogames, and Society, and coeditor of Data, Now Bigger and Better! (Prickly Paradigm Press). Former Editor-in-Chief of American Anthropologist, the flagship journal of the American Anthropological Association, Boellstorff currently coedits the Princeton University Press book series “Princeton Studies in Culture and Technology.” They have conducted research in Indonesia since 1992 and online since 2003. His published articles have appeared in top edited volumes including A Companion to the Anthropology of the Body and Embodiment (Wiley-Blackwell), Digital Anthropology (Berg), and Understanding Global Sexualities (Routledge), and in journals including ACM Interactions; American Anthropologist; American Ethnologist (twice); Anthropological Forum (twice); Cultural Anthropology (twice); Current Anthropology (twice); Annual Review of Anthropology; Disability Studies Quarterly; Environment and Planning D: Society and Space; First Monday; Games and Culture (twice); Information, Communication, and Society; International Journal of Communication; Journal of Asian Studies; Journal of Linguistic Anthropology; Journal of Virtual Worlds Research (twice); Ethnos (twice); GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies (thrice); Media, Culture, and Society (twice); and Visual Anthropology Review.

Learning about how digital worlds are reshaping the human journey.

The online and offline are both "real."

anthropology, digital culture, ethnography, metaverse, sexuality, virtual worlds

This is my first TED. I'm just at the beginning stages of a new research project: the anthropology of the metaverse. I look forward to all the conversations and how they will transform my thinking!

Living a well-rounded life.