Date: 22nd Feb 2019 (Friday)

Time: 12:00pm – 2:00pm

Venue: CKB109

Speaker: Prof. Chris Tan (Associate Professor at Institute of Social Anthropology, Nanjing University, China)

Abstract:

China’s economic liberalization in 1978 created new gendered and sexual subjectivities. This essay examines a new Internet meme gaymi (“gay confidante”) and its discursive construction of gay men as genteel embodiments of a women-friendly “emergent masculinity” (Inhorn and Wentzell, 2011). We argue that firstly, the gaymi discourse actually centers on the women who desire gay male companionship, because it ironically articulates the desires of these women and not those of the men. Secondly, strong links possibly exist between the rise of the gaymi and the popularity of the Korean Wave in China. Hence, the gaymi gestures at intra-Asian cultural globalization. 

Biography:

Chris K. K. Tan is Associate Professor at the Institute of Social Anthropology at Nanjing University, China. His current research focuses on the intersections between affect and communicative technologies, especially the cell phone, in China. He previously published in such journals as Urban Studies, Anthropological Quarterly, and Journal of Homosexuality. He is currently working on a monograph manuscript about national belonging among gay men in Singapore.

Register Online:  http://bit.ly/2019gaymi