Queer Chinese Cultures and Mobilities: Kinship, Migration, and Middle Classes, with John Wei (University of Otago, New Zealand) (Weds. Feb. 10, 2021)
The BU Dept. of World Languages and Literatures’ New Books in East Asian Literature lecture series, as part of its 2020-2021 theme “Kinship, Sexuality, and Emotions,” is pleased to present
Queer Chinese Cultures and Mobilities: Kinship, Migration, and Middle Classes
by Dr. John Wei
(University of Otago, New Zealand)
Wednesday, February 10, from 4 pm to 5:30 pm (EST)
Please register for the event through the following link:
ABSTRACT:
In Queer Chinese Cultures and Mobilities, John Wei brings light to the germination and movements of queer cultures and social practices in today’s China and Sinophone Asia. While many scholars attribute China’s emergent queer cultures to the neoliberal turn and the global political landscape, Wei refuses to take these assumptions for granted. He finds that the values and pitfalls of the development-induced mobilities and post-development syndromes have conjointly structured and sustained people’s ongoing longings and sufferings under the dual pressure of compulsory familism and compulsory development. While young gay men are increasingly mobilized in their decision-making to pursue sociocultural and socioeconomic capital to afford a queer life, the ubiquitous and compulsory mobilities have significantly reshaped and redefined today’s queer kinship structure, transnational cultural network, and social stratification in China and capitalist Asia. With Queer Chinese Cultures and Mobilities, Wei interrogates the meanings and functions of mobilities at the forefront of China’s internal transformation and international expansion for its great dream of revival, when gender and sexuality have become increasingly mobilized with geographical, cultural, and social class migrations and mobilizations beyond traditional and conventional frameworks, categories, and boundaries.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Dr John Wei (BA, Univ. of Lanzhou; PG (Dip), Beijing Foreign Studies University; MA (Auckland), PhD (Auckland and Melbourne)
Dr John Wei joined Sociology, Gender Studies and Criminology at University of Otago with a background in Culture and Communication as well as Media, Film and Television. He has previously held multiple teaching and research roles at the University of Melbourne, the University of Auckland, and the University of Canterbury.
His research focuses on transnational gender, sexuality, and queer studies through an intersectional approach combining urban sociology, ethnography, migration and mobilities, and media and film studies to interrogate wider and ongoing social changes in global and regional flows and movements of talents, cultures, and capital.
John is the author of Queer Chinese Cultures and Mobilities: Kinship, Migration, and Middle Classes (Hong Kong University Press, 2020). His current work explores social practices and cultural productions of gender and sexuality through a comparative lens across global Anglophone (English-speaking) and Sinophone (Chinese-speaking) societies to consider geographical, social, generational, cultural, and gender/sexual mobilities in the 21st century.
Publications:
Authored Book – Research
Wei, J. (2020). Queer Chinese cultures and mobilities: Kinship, migration, and middle classes. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 216p. doi: 10.2307/j.ctv12fw76v
Journal – Research Article
Wei, J., Carter, S., & Laurs, D. (2019). Handling the loss of innocence: First-time exchange of writing and feedback in doctoral supervision. Higher Education Research & Development, 38(1), 157-169. doi: 10.1080/07294360.2018.1541074
Wei, J. (2015). Queer sinophonicities in (South) East Asia: The short films of Desmond Bing-Yen Ti. Intersections, 38. doi: 10.17613/M6W01K
Wei, J. (2014). Iron Man in Chinese boys’ love fandom: A story untold. Transformative Works & Cultures, 17. doi: 10.3983/twc.2014.0561
Journal – Research Other
Wei, J. (2014). [Review of the book Queer Marxism in two Chinas]. China Review International, 21(2), 182-184. doi: 10.1353/cri.2014.0016
Wei, J. (2014). ‘But there are no lions in the Scottish highlands’: Reading the trunk in Matka. Short Film Studies, 4(1), 51-54. doi: 10.1386/sfs.4.1.51_1
Wei, J. (2014). [Review of the book Queer/Tongzhi China: New perspectives on research, activism, and media cultures]. China Review International, 21(2), 133-136. doi: 10.1353/cri.2014.0009
Wei, J. (2014). [Review of the book Tongzhi living: Men attracted to men in postsocialist China]. China Review International, 21(2), 195-198. doi: 10.1353/cri.2014.0020
Conference Contribution – Published proceedings: Abstract
Wei, J. (2019). “Gated communities”: Queer middle classes and social stratification in urban China. Proceedings of the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) Annual Conference. Retrieved from https://convention2.allacademic.com/one/nwsa/nwsa19
Conference Contribution – Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs
Wei, J. (2018, March). Stretched kinship and queer mobilities in Chinese societies. Verbal presentation at the Association for Asian Studies (ASA) Annual Conference, Washington, D.C., USA.
Wei, J. (2018, March). Stretched kinship: Queer Chinese cultures/mobilities in the twenty-first century. Verbal presentation at the Popular Cultural Association & American Cultural Association (PCA/ACA) Conference, Indianapolis, USA.
Wei, J. (2017, May). Stretched kinship: Queer Chinese mobilities in the twenty-first century. Verbal presentation at the International Communication Association’s 67th Annual Conference, San Diego, USA.
Wei, J. (2017, October). Mobilised desire, decentred cinema: Queer film clubs/communities in urban China. Verbal presentation at the San Francisco State University’s School of Cinema 19th Annual Conference: Cinema De-Centered, San Francisco, USA.
Wei, J. (2016, March-April). Queer Confucian bodies on digital screens: Sexual capital, dis/embodiment, and locative mobile social media. Verbal presentation at the Doing the Body in the 21st Century Conference, Pittsburgh, USA.