Boys' love, cosplay, and androgynous idols: Queer fan cultures in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

Maud Lavin; Ling Yang; Jing Jamie Zhao

doi:10.2307/j.ctt1rfzz65

Boys' love, cosplay, and androgynous idols: Queer fan cultures in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

Maud Lavin^* (Editor)
, Ling Yang (Editor)
, Jing Jamie Zhao (Editor)

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Scholarly Books, Monographs, Reports and Case Studies › RGC 14 - Edited book (Editor) › peer-review

58 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Chinese-speaking popular cultures have never been so queer in this digital, globalist age. The title of this pioneering volume, Boys' Love, Cosplay, and Androgynous Idols: Queer Fan Cultures in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan already gives an idea of the colorful, multifaceted realms the fans inhabit today. Contributors to this collection situate the proliferation of (often online) queer representations, productions, fantasies, and desires as a reaction against the norms in discourses surrounding nation-states, linguistics, geopolitics, genders, and sexualities. Moving beyond the easy polarities between general resistance and capitulation, Queer Fan Cultures explores the fans' diverse strategies in negotiating with cultural strictures and media censorship. It further outlines the performance of subjectivity, identity, and agency that cyberspace offers to female fans. Presenting a wide array of concrete case studies of queer fandoms in Chinese-speaking contexts, the essays in this volume challenge long-established Western-centric and Japanese-focused fan scholarship by highlighting the significance and specificities of Sinophone queer fan cultures and practices in a globalized world. The geographic organization of the chapters illuminates cultural differences and the other competing forces shaping geocultural intersections among fandoms based in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

Original language	English
Publisher	Hong Kong University Press
ISBN (Electronic)	9789888390441
ISBN (Print)	9789888390809
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1rfzz65
Publication status	Published - 2017
Externally published	Yes

Publication series

Name	Queer Asia

Funding

For support throughout the preparation of this book, Maud Lavin thanks, at the School of the Art Institute, Dean of Faculty Lisa Wainwright, the departments of Visual and Critical Studies and Art History, Theory and Criticism, and her students. She is thankful for an SAIC Faculty Enrichment Grant, which helped fund research for her chapter of this study. In addition, she is grateful for a Senior Research Residency in the Cultural Studies Cluster at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore—indispensable for providing research time and inspiration about issues of genders, sexualities, and East Asian cultural studies. For continued dialogue on these and related subjects, she thanks colleagues there and elsewhere, including Annie Bourneuf, Carolyn Brewer, Adam Cheung, David Getsy, Chua Beng Huat, Sun Jung, Kumiko Kawashima, Joan Kee, SooJin Lee, Lee Weng Choy, Qianhan Lin, Star Sijia Liu, Karen Morris, Terry Murphy, Zeenat Nagree, Margaret Olin, Shawn Michelle Smith, Sang-Yeon Loise Sung, and Xiaorui Zhu. And she is hugely grateful to her coeditors, Ling Yang and Jing Jamie Zhao. Ling Yang is grateful for a research grant from the Sumitomo Foundation that helped fund the research for her two chapters and cover the reprint fees of Fran Martin’s chapter. She thanks Koichi Iwabuchi and Eva Tsai for helping her obtain the grant. She is also grateful to Jessica Bauwens-Sugimoto, Jaqueline Berndt, Mark McLelland, Kazumi Nagaike, Fusami Ogi, Katsuhiko Suganuma, and James Welker for welcoming her into the academic circle of Japanese BL studies; and Tao Dongfeng and Naifei Ding for providing her much-needed encouragement and publishing support in the Chinese-speaking academic world. In addition, Yang feels deeply indebted to her research partner Yanrui Xu and all the BL creators and readers she and Yanrui have talked to over the years. Their passions and perseverance have inspired her to continue her “queer” research regardless of the circumstances. And above all, she is extremely thankful to her coeditors, Maud Lavin and Jing Jamie Zhao, who have helped her gain so much more than an extra line in her curriculum vitae. The production of this volume was partly supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (20720151016) administered by Xiamen University.

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Boys' love, cosplay, and androgynous idols: Queer fan cultures in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan

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