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Family Matters: Chinese Queer Politics around the Rise of a Family-State (Wei Wei, Eastern China Normal University)
Wednesday, February 08, 2023, 04:00pm - 05:30pm
 
Contact Louisa Schein (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

This is the first part of a two-day event, "Encountering Queer China Through Film and Fieldwork." The second part, a film-screening, will take place tomorrow. Click here for tomorrow's film screening. Both events are open to the public. This event is generously co-sponsored by Rutgers Global.

*This lecture will be accompanied by a screening of filmmaker Fan Popo’s documentary “New Beijing, New Marriage” (2009, 18 mins.)*

Wei Wei

Abstract

LGBT activism in mainland China faces increasing challenges from the state in recent years. Drawing on decades-long research into Chinese LGBT communities and activism, the study situates challenges and responses of the LGBT communities in the changing social and geopolitical context of a rising China. On the one hand, the increasing regulation from the state further marginalizes mobilization around LGBT identity-politics. On the other hand, the newly emerging LGBT parent families utilize the opportunities of policy change to strive for the state’s recognition. The talk concludes with a discussion of Chinese homonationalism in the making, which may also have implication for queer politics beyond China.

Bio

Wei Wei is a Professor of Sociology at East China Normal University, and a Visiting Scholar at Harvard-Yenching Institute (2022-23) and Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women, Brown University (2014-15). His teaching and research interests include gender and sexuality, urban sociology and social movement, with a focus on LGBTQ communities and politics in contemporary China. In addition to authoring two Chinese books Going Public: The Production and Transformation of Queer Spaces in Chengdu, China (2012, Shanghai Joint Publishing Company) and Queering Chinese Society: Urban Space, Popular Culture and Social Policy (2015, Guangxi Normal University Press ), he has published more than thirty articles in both English and Chinese peer-reviewed journals, including Feminist Studies, Culture, Health & Sexuality, Journal of Homosexuality, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, and Chinese Sociological Review.

 

Location  Alexander Library, Multipurpose Room on 4th floor