Queer Sinophone Studies: New Directions

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel Proposal Application

Abstract

Sinophone studies takes as its object of analysis worldwide Sinitic-language cultures and communities that defy the hegemonic productions of the Chinese nation-state. The publication of the volume _Queer Sinophone Cultures_ (coedited by Howard Chiang and Ari Larissa Heinrich) in 2013 brought together for the first time sustained explorations of where and how queer and Sinophone critiques intersect. This proposed panel seeks to extend the scholarly agenda of _Queer Sinophone Cultures_ through the presentation of four papers that draw on a diverse range of disciplinary perspectives—cultural studies, ethnography, area studies, history, legal studies, and political science. Expanding the disciplinary horizon of (queer) Sinophone studies into the realm of social scientific inquiries, this panel brings to light fresh materials and new theoretical angels in order to unpack the compound workings of the vectors of national and sexual marginality. Topics range from the legal history of transgender marriages to the postcolonial intersections of Hong Kong and tongzhi identities, and from the materialist reappraisals of avant-garde gay cinema to the subversive spaces of queer political organization. This panel showcases the latest research of a group of early career scholars whose work reorients existing debates about the role of Asia in globally saturated contexts of ideas, institutions, and identities. In pushing queer Sinophone studies in new directions, the papers highlight the emergence of queer politics, culture, and everyday life from alternative spaces of belonging that transform what passes as “the natural” in China-centric and heteronormative biases.

Area of Study

• Interarea-Border Crossing-Diaspora

Session Organizer

• Howard Chiang, University of Warwick

Chair

• Howard Chiang, University of Warwick

Individual Presentations

• Return, Come Out: Queer Lives in Postcolonial Hong Kong - Lucetta Kam, Hong Kong Baptist University

• Queering the Quality of Desire: Perverse Use Value and Gay Male Bodily Economies in Sinophone Cinema - Alvin Wong, UIC of Yonsei University

• The Polite Residuals of Heteronormativity: Transgender Marriage in Sinophone Communities - Howard Chiang, University of Warwick

• Expanding Political Space in Contemporary China: Queer Groups’ Involvement in the Campaign against Domestic Violence - Weiting Wu, Academia Sinica