CFP: Queer Chinese Cinemas (9/30/2005; collection)

This book project seeks to bring together essays written in English that
examine the cultural politics of various queer Chinese cinemas. We are
particularly interested in essays that examine the ways in which
different queer Chinese cinematic works (feature films and shorts)
negotiate and complicate the interactions between queer sexuality and
Chinese-ness not only in terms of their specifically localized national
contexts, but also within transnational networks of production,
consumption, and popular/critical reception. We are also interested in
looking at representations of sexualities existing within mainstream
cinemas which demonstrate queer tendencies and deviate from dominant
heteronormative cultural constructions. Essays which render a queer
reading of heteronormative cinematic texts are also welcomed. We define
"Chinese cinema" rather broadly to encompass not just Mainland Chinese
works, but also the cinemas of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Chinese
diaspora, including films featuring Chinese American and British Chinese
queer identities and representations. The term "queer" refers to a more
fluid conception of sexual identities that includes but is not
restricted to lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender, and transsexual
identities and politics.

Some of the possible themes or figures that these essays address may
include the following:

 - Culturally inflected (meaning "Chinese") epistemologies of the closet
 - Fresh theories and histories of queerness emerging out of
contemporary queer Chinese cinema
 - Queer theory meets Chinese cinema, or the queering of Chinese cinema
 - Transnational reception of critically acclaimed queer Chinese films
 - The politics of responding to national censorship laws
 - Films by seminal directors such as Tsai Ming-liang and Stanley Kwan.
 - Works by lesser known filmmakers and the marking out of new cinematic
directions
 - Recurring queer cinematic tropes within Chinese cinema
 - Queer reception of Chinese films
 - Conceptualizing and problematizing queerness as political metaphor in
Chinese cinema

Please submit via email a 300-word abstract and a brief bio in a
Microsoft Word file attachment by September 30, 2005, to:

Kenneth Chan
Assistant Professor
Division of English
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Nanyang Techonological University
Email: kwchan_at_ntu.edu.sg

or

Jeffrey Tan
Teaching Fellow
Division of Chinese
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Nanyang Techonological University
Email: jtan_at_ntu.edu.sg

 
 
 
______________________________________

Dr. Kenneth Chan
Assistant Professor
Division of English
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Nanyang Technological University
Nanyang Avenue
Singapore 639798
Tel: (65) 6790 6704
Fax: (65) 6794 6303
Email: kwchan_at_ntu.edu.sg
http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/kwchan/index.html

         ==========================================================
              From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List
                        CFP_at_english.upenn.edu
                         Full Information at
                     http://cfp.english.upenn.edu
         or write Jennifer Higginbotham: higginbj_at_english.upenn.edu
         ==========================================================
Received on Wed Aug 17 2005 - 06:03:44 EDT