The event will be held in English.

Concept and moderation:

Dr Wang Yi, Team leader of the international department, University of Hamburg

Speaker: Dr Hongwei Bao, University of Nottingham

Queer China: Lesbian and Gay Literature and Visual Culture under Postsocialism

In the past four decades, lesbian, gay and other sexual minorities have been increasingly visible in the People’s Republic of China; there has also been a proliferation of queer cultural production – including literature, art, film and performance – associated with these identities. These changes constitute part of the broader social transformations in gender, sexuality, and desire – a process which the author calls ‘postsocialist metamorphosis’ – that is related to China’s postsocialist condition and its ambivalent relationship to the world.

This talk is based on the author’s new book Queer China: Lesbian and Gay Literature and Visual Culture under Postsocialism. It examines queer literature and visual culture in China’s post-Mao and postsocialist era (1976 to present). The book reveals a queer China in its ideological complexity and creative energy through a wide range of case studies: from poetry to papercutting art, from ‘comrade/gay literature’ to girls’ love fan fiction, from lesbian film to activist documentary, and from a drag show in Shanghai to a public performance of same-sex wedding in Beijing. The author suggests that these cultural productions not only function as context specific and culturally sensitive forms of social activism; they also produce distinct types of gender and sexual subjectivities.

More information about the book:

https://www.routledge.com/Queer-China-Lesbian-and-Gay-Literature-and-Visual-Culture-under-Postsocialism/Bao/p/book/9780367462840

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781003027898

Dr Hongwei Bao is an associate professor in media studies at the University of Nottingham, UK, where he also directs the Centre for Contemporary East Asian Cultural Studies. He obtained his PhD in Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney. His research primarily focuses on queer media and culture in contemporary China. He is the author of Queer Comrades: Gay Identity and Tongzhi Activism in Postsocialist China (NIAS Press, 2018) and Queer China: Lesbian and Gay Literature and Visual Culture under Postsocialism (Routledge, 2020).

More information about the author:

https://www.routledge.com/authors/i19813-hongwei-bao