12 Feb

14:00

Lipsius building

Cleveringaplaats 1, Leiden

A book talk with author Howard Chiang on his new book 'Unclassifiable', which explores the historical emergence of queer archives in the Chinese-speaking worlds.

Unclassifiable: Queer Archives and the Chinese-Speaking Worlds

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Book Talk with Howard Chiang

Join us for a talk by Howard Chiang (University of California, Davis) on his new book, Unclassifiable: Queer Archives and the Chinese-Speaking Worlds. He will be joined by discussant J. G. A. D'haenens (Leiden University).

About the Book

Unclassifiable is the first book-length study of the historical emergence of queer archives in the Chinese-speaking worlds. It tells a story of how the unclassifiable—a queer subject position that resists categorization—became the organizing principle of a new archival consciousness. The book traces the concept of the archive as it is articulated by LGBTQ and queer-identified activists, artists, and filmmakers in post-martial law Taiwan, post-handover Hong Kong, and post-socialist China.

Howard Chiang analyzes a wide range of media, from documentary films and fictional movies to oral history, memoirs, and art installations. He shows how the archive functions as a critical method for queer world-making that is at once situated in the local and transnational in its reach. Chiang argues that the Sinophone queer archive is a utopian project that aims to create a new, capacious vision of the past, present, and future. In doing so, he highlights the political potential of the unclassifiable as a category of analysis and a mode of being that challenges the normative logics of the state, the family, and the market.

This event is organized by the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) and the Leiden University Centre for Digital Humanities (LUCDH).