Research Seminar - Department of Art History and Cultural Practices, University of Manchester
Queering the Asian Diaspora: East and Southeast Asian Identity, Sexuality and Cultural Politics
Dr Hongwei Bao, University of Nottingham
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated global geopolitical tensions and exposed rising Sinophobia and anti-Asian racism worldwide. At the same time, there has been a nascent Asian diasporic consciousness emerging globally, celebrating Asian identity and cultural heritage. In the space between anti-Asian racism and Asian Pride, queer people’s voices have been largely missing. How is queer Asian diaspora situated in-between mainstream Asian and LGBTQ politics? Is a queer Asian diasporic cultural politics possible? This talk will draw on Hongwei Bao’s new book Queering the Asian Diaspora (Sage, 2024), an interdisciplinary book that draws on a broad range of case studies since the 2010s to illustrate how an emerging queer Asian diasporic politics is articulated through cultural production such as art, curating, film, digital media, fashion photography, performance as well as social and political activism. Through conjunctural analysis and a case studies approach, situated at the intersection of art history and museum studies, media and cultural studies, migration and diaspora studies, queer studies and Asian Studies, the talk advocates a post-identitarian, intersectional and transversal queer Asian diasporic cultural politics.
Biography
Dr Hongwei Bao is Associate Professor in Media Studies at the University of Nottingham. Trained as a cultural historian, Bao is the author of five monographs on Chinese queer history and culture, including Queer China: Lesbian and Gay Literature and Visual Culture under Postsocialism (Routledge, 2020) and Queering the Asian Diaspora (Sage, 2024), and co-editor of Contemporary Queer Chinese Art (Bloomsbury, 2024) and Queer Avant-Garde (De Gruyter, forthcoming in 2026). Bao is co-editor of the De Gruyter book series ‘Oyster: Feminist and Queer Approaches to Arts, Cultures, and Genders’. As a poet, Bao is the author of The Passion of the Rabbit God (Valley Press, 2024) and Self-Portrait as a Banana (Poetic Edge, 2025).
