Nottingham Trent University

Faculty Member, Communication, Culture and Media

About

I am currently lecturer in Asian Media at Nottingham Trent University, UK. I have recently completed a Ph.D. in Gender and Cultural Studies from Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, the University of Sydney, Australia. During the past ten years, I have studied, worked and lived in Beijing, Nanjing, Sydney, Berlin and London. I have taught English at Xi'an International Studies University, China; Communication Studies at the  National Academy of Chinese Theatrical Arts, Beijing (2003 to 2006); Asian Studies and Gender Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia; and Cultural Studies at University of Potsdam, Germany. I was British Academy visiting fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London from Sept. 2011 to Jan. 2012. I love teaching and doing academic research. My academic interests include gender and sexuality in Asia, modern Chinese history and historiography, media and cultural studies, urban and cultural geography, feminism and queer theory, and postcolonial studies.

I have recently completed my dissertation tited '"Queer Comrades": Gay Identity and Politics in Postsocialist China'.I am currently working on the dissertation and turning it into a book manuscript. 

My dissertation examines gay identity and queer politics in China’s postsocialist era. It argues that in contemporary China, the socialist ‘comrade’ subjectivity and the postsocialist ‘queer’ subjectivity are mutually constitutive. It discursively analyses the genealogical emergence of gay subjectivity from the 1980s onwards, arguing that gay identity and queer politics in China can be understood as articulating a discourse of the ‘queer comrade’. This demonstrates that China’s socialist past lays foundation to and provides inspiration for contemporary gay identity and queer politics, which are both produced by, and pose resistance to, the nation state and transnational capitalism.

This examination of the emergence of gay subjectivity calls for an analysis of a number of related issues, including persistent yet changing forms of state power and governmentality, which affect the increasing social inequality and injustice that mark China’s economic reform. It unravels some of the complex ways in which gay identity in China is being negotiated in people’s everyday lives, examining the experiences of gays and lesbians who have lived and continue to live through the unfolding histories of postsocialism.

This is an interdisciplinary project which draws on historical, theoretical, textual and ethnographic methodologies. It weaves together theories from Marxism, poststructualism, postcolonialism, feminism and queer theory, political philosophy and modern Chinese history. In the process, it engages in multiple disciplinary fields, namely gender and sexuality studies, urban studies, media studies, anthropology, literary and film studies, and Asian cultural studies. The claim that guides this thesis is that sexuality, identity and social movements in contemporary China cannot be elucidated without a reassessment of the Marxist and socialist legacy that overshadows contemporary politics and the Chinese people’s daily lived experience.