Beyond the Strai(gh)ts: Transnationalism and Queer Chinese Politics

Center for the Study of Sexual Cultures, Institute of East Asian Studies, Center for Chinese Studies, Comparative Literature, Consortium for the Arts, Women's Studies, International and Area Studies, Dean of Humanities, Townsend Center, Center for Race and Gender, Dean of Social Sciences, Institute for Tongzhi Studies.

In recent years, transnational flows of people, information, images, and capital radically changed the lives and organizations of queer people in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. How do queer people in these regions today organize their communities and futures in an era marked by transnational corporations,bootleg DVDs, internet chat rooms, migrant workers, inter-Asia human rights organizations, "flexible citizenship," sex tourism, the Chinese diaspora, minority studies in Asia, and new cinematic and literary modes of cultural exchange? What engagements have there been, or should there be, be with US queer politics, and Asian American and racial politics in particular? How have transnational norms, themselves been shaped by queer forms of exchange?

This conference aims to bring to a US audience ten scholars, activists, and cultural producers whose work has been critical in queer transformations in China and Taiwan, and to engage them in dialogue with important US based queer scholars and artists. Shifting the focus of comparison from the governmental role of individual states, it will ask both overseas and US participants how they perceive existing — and future — transnational processes to affect queer organizing and political discourses both within and beyond the local. We hope this forum will also enable a critical discussion of the relations between Asian American and tongzhi (Chinese lgbt) politics.

In conjunction with the conference we will be premiering new queer Chinese films and artwork by Shi Tou, Cui Zien, Hoang Tan Nguyen, and Lynne Chan (aka JJ Chinois).

The conference will be in English and is open to the general public.