While a growing body of literature looks at women and girls in relation to gender and gaming, very little has been written regarding boys and men in that area.

So says T.L. Taylor, associate professor at MIT, who will deliver the free public lecture “Athletes, Geeks, and Gamers: Exploring Gender and Professional E-sports” at 5 p.m. Feb. 28 at the Knight Library Browsing Room, 1501 Kincaid St.

Taylor, an associate professor of Comparative Media Studies, is the co-author of “Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method” and the author of “Raising the Stakes: E-sports and the Professionalization of Computer Gaming.”

“More attention is needed in unpacking various forms of masculinities, some even under contest, within game culture,” Taylor said. “E-sports, a form of organized competitive computer gaming, proves to be a particularly useful site to explore this domain given it intersects conversations about both athleticism and geekiness, classic and potent way-points for the construction of femininity and masculinity.”

Taylor explores several major forms of masculinity produced in the professional e-sports scene, centering on a notion of athletic masculinity and constructions of “geekyness.”

The lecture is sponsored by the UO Center for the Study of Women in Society, Robert D. Clark Honors College, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Comparative Literature, and the School of Journalism and Communications.