David Eng's Colloquium

The Queer Space of China: Expressive Desire in Stanley Kwan's Lan Yu

This presentation comes from my book-in-progress, The Queer Space of China. The project explores the emergence of gay and lesbian life in contemporary China in relation to liberal distinctions between public space and private desires. Following anthropologist Lisa Rofel's recent scholarship on expressive desire, I investigate the ways in which Chinese gays and lesbians are positioned as ideal individuals who are uniquely capable of embracing their private desires and thus are at the vanguard of a new modernity in China. In this presentation, I will focus on Stanley Kwan's 2001 film, Lan Yu.