Queering Gender, Sexuality, and Becoming-Human in Qing Dynasty Zhiguai

Zusatztext

This book offers queer readings of Chinese Qing Dynasty zhiguai, strange tales, a genre of literature featuring supernatural characters and events. In a unique approach interweaving consideration of Chinese indigenous philosophies alongside critical theories, this book explores tales which speak to contemporary debates around sexuality, gender, anthropocentrism, identity, and power. Depiction of blurred boundaries between humans and animals, transformations between genders, diverse sexualities, and contextually unusual masculinities and femininities, these features lend such tales to queer readings. Unlike previous scholarship focusing on characters as allegorical figures and stories as morality tales, this book draws on queer theory, animal studies, feminism, and Deleuzian philosophy, to explore portrayal of the strange and its potential for social critique. Examining such tales further enriches the scope of historic queer world literature, and offers culturally situated stories of relationships, desires, and ways of being, that both speak to and challenge contemporary debates.

Autorenportrait

Thomas William Whyke is an Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Ningbo, China. His research interest lies in Queer Theorys debates around heteronormativity, but also fluid identities and identities without an essence, an area of research that branches out more broadly into representations of gender and sexualities, animals, and humans. Melissa Shani Brown is affiliated with the Faculty of East Asian Studies, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany. Her research interests include the conceptualization of silence in critical theory, and the depiction of sexuality, gender, and ethnicity in cultural texts.

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