8 April 2017 (Sturday), 10:30am – 6:30pm
Lecture Theatre 2, Lee Shau Kee Building (Updated)
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
https://goo.gl/forms/58ASuLrLrBkyoYRW2
The booklet of symposium is available HERE.
Queer identity politics has assumed an increasing visibility in China’s urban centers. LGBT friendly restaurants, lesbian marriage activism, the popular genre of boy’s love, and transgendered celebrities are changing the public culture of gender and sexuality. At the same time, the pink economy in China is one of the fastest growing sectors. Various new social media platforms such as Blued and LesPark bloom in response to high demands of the LGBT communities. All these new practices are not only responses over new meanings of desires, interests, consumption, and new identities within a changing social, political, and economic landscape. They are also tied to new forms of citizen rights advocacy and new forms of social activism.
The symposium of Movements of Desires gathers esteemed scholars, activists, and artists from China and abroad to explore the ways that queer studies, politics, new media practices and consumption innovation transform and reimagine new social possibilities and scholarship.
Keynote Speech
Queering Commercial Life in Contemporary China
Prof. Lisa ROFEL (University of California, Santa Cruz)
The predominant critique of queer life under neo-liberalism is that gay liberation has been co-opted by the commodification of everyday life and the ineluctable forces that pull individuals into heteronormativity. This talk challenges such assumptions. Against such a totalizing framework of analysis, I will argue that we need to adopt other theoretical and analytical tools, such as Foucault’s subjugated knowledges, Raymond Williams’ notion of the emergent, Deleuze and Guattari’s nomadism, and feminist post-structuralist ideas of heterogeneous contingencies to understand the way in which oppressed social groups use the offerings at hand to craft a more liberating life.
Symposium Speakers
Prof. Sealing CHENG (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Prof. Lucetta Y.L. KAM (Hong Kong Baptist University)
Prof. Travis S.K. KONG (The University of Hong Kong)
Prof. Yiu-tung SUEN (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Prof. WEI Wei (East China Normal University)
Prof. Day WONG (Hong Kong Baptist University)
Prof. Ka-ming WU (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Ms. ZENG Jinyan (The University of Hong Kong)
All are welcome. Registration is required by 4 April 2017.
Website: www.cuhk.edu.hk/crs/ccs
Enquiry: 3943 1255 / cuccs@cuhk.edu.hk
Organized by the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, and the Centre for Cultural Studies, the Chinese University of Hong Kong
Sponsored by Faculty of Arts, CUHK