Event Date:
Thursday, November 2, 2023 - 6:00pm to 7:15pm
Event Date Details:
This Gender and Sexualities Book Club meeting is organized by Tristan Bridges (tbridges@soc.ucsb.edu). If you’re a member of the UCSB community, you can also request access to our list serv at “SOC genderandsexuality” for updates on our group activities.
If you'd like to sign up to join the discussion, please sign up here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ictPiqkUTSSpbbZ1EB1ywLuvx6RbXYy8...
Event Location:
- Via Zoom
Event Contact:
Tristan Bridges tbridges@soc.ucsb.edu
Travis S.K. Kong
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology
The University of Hong Kong, China
Sexuality and the Rise of China: The Post-1990s Generation in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China
In Sexuality and the Rise of China Travis S. K. Kong examines the changing meanings of same-sex identities, communities, and cultures for young Chinese gay men in contemporary Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China. Drawing on ninety life stories, Kong’s transnational queer sociological approach shows the complex interplay between personal biography and the dramatically changing social institutions in these three societies. Kong conceptualizes coming out as relational politics and the queer/tongzhi community and commons as an affective, imaginative means of connecting, governed by homonormative masculinity. He shows how monogamy is a form of cruel optimism and envisions state and sexuality intertwining in different versions of homonationalism in each location. Tracing the alternately diverging and converging paths of being young, "Chinese," gay, and male, Kong reveals how both Western and emerging inter- and intra- Asian queer cultures shape queer/tongzhi experiences. Most significantly, at this historical juncture characterized by the rise of China, Kong criticizes the globalization of sexuality by emphasizing inter-Asia modeling, referencing, and solidarities and debunks the essentializing myth of Chineseness, thereby decolonizing Western sexual knowledge and demonstrating the differential meanings of Chineseness/queerness across the Sinophone world.
Dr. Travis Kong, is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong and, since 2012, has served as Co-Editor at Sexualities: Studies in Culture and Society. His work is part of the newly emerging interdisciplinary field of Asian queer studies, a body of scholarship that aims to understand the complex process of Western, local and interregional knowledge systems in shaping experiences, identities and desires in specific sites in and throughout Asia. He is among the leading interdisciplinary scholars of Chinese masculinities and has published widely, internationally, and interdisciplinarily on this topic.
October 6, 2023 - 9:55am