Gay Bombay by
Through a multi-sited ethnography in an online-offline community, Parmesh Shahani examines how Internet technologies, the media industry, audiences and broader socio-historical contexts shape gay identity in contemporary urban India. He realizes that the identity of a gay man in the community is negotiated on the stability of the idea of Indianness. For readers across the world focused on India,nbsp;Gay Bombaynbsp;will serve as a memorable journey through various transitions in urban India. nbsp; nbsp;
Invented Identities by
These essays explore the processes by which gender identities are formalized and ritualized through language, ritual performance, narrative, and politics. They show how gender identities in India have been invented and valued in different historical, religious, and social contexts.
Queer Activism in India by
In Queer Activism in India, Naisargi Dave examines the formation of lesbian communities in India from the 1980s to the early 2000s. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted with activist organizations in Delhi, a body of letters written by lesbian women, and research with lesbian communities and queer activist groups across the country, Dave studies the everyday practices that constitute queer activism in India. Dave argues that activism is an ethical practice comprised of critique, invention, and relational practice. Her analysis investigates the relationship between the ethics of activism and the existing social norms and conditions from which activism emerges. Through her study of different networks and institutions, Dave documents how activism oscillates between the potential for new social arrangements and the questions that arise once the activists' goals have been accomplished. Dave's book addresses a relevant and timely phenomenon and makes an important contribution to the anthropology of queer communities, social movements, affect, and ethics.
Queering India by
Queering India is the first book to provide an understanding of same-sex love and eroticism in Indian culture and society. The essays focus on pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial gay and lesbian life in India to provide a comprehensive look at a much neglected topic. The topics are wide-ranging, considering film, literature, popular culture, historical and religious texts, law and other aspects of life in India. Specifically, the essays cover such issues as Deepa Mehta's recent and controversial film, Fire, which focused on lesbian relationships in India; the Indian penal code which outlaws homosexual acts; a case of same-sex love and murder in colonial India; homophobic fiction and homoerotic advertising in current day India; and lesbian subtext in Hindu scripture. All of the essays are original to the collection. Queering India promises to change the way we understand India as well as gay and lesbian life and sexuality around the world.
AsiaPacifQueer by
This interdisciplinary collection examines the shaping of local sexual cultures in the Asian Pacific region in order to move beyond definitions and understandings of sexuality that rely on Western assumptions. The diverse studies in AsiaPacifiQueer demonstrate convincingly that in the realm of sexualities, globalization results in creative and cultural admixture rather than a unilateral imposition of the western values and forms of sexual culture. These essays range across the Pacific Rim and encompass a variety of forms of social, cultural, and personal expression, examining sexuality through music, cinema, the media, shifts in popular rhetoric, comics and magazines, and historical studies. By investigating complex processes of localization, interregional borrowing, and hybridization, the contributors underscore the mutual transformation of gender and sexuality in both Asian Pacific and Western cultures.Contributors are Ronald Baytan, J. Neil C. Garcia, Kam Yip Lo Lucetta, Song Hwee Lim, J. Darren Mackintosh, Claire Maree, Jin-Hyung Park, Teri Silvio, Megan Sinnott, Yik Koon Teh, Carmen Ka Man Tong, James Welker, Heather Worth, and Audrey Yue.
Sites of Desire, Economies of Pleasure by
Discussions of sexuality in Asia and the Pacific have long been tinged with conceptions of the exotic Orient. Examining a world of erotic encounter between European, Asian, and Pacific people, these essays explore how sexual practices and sexual meanings have been constructed across cultural borders in Thailand, the Philippines, Burma/Myanmar, Japan, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and the Polynesian islands. Considering sexuality as embedded in a complex social and political world structured and saturated by gender, race, and class relations, these scholars challenge the categories with which sex and gender have been named and studied. They examine these sites of desire through specific historic and cultural circumstances, from the first explorations of Europeans, through colonial power, to the contemporary issues of sexual tourism, prostitution, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. A unique and important contribution to the study of sexuality, this book also suggests that the history of sexuality in the West was shaped by myths of the legendary Orient and the exotic "Other."
Transgender China by
This volume brings together experts with diverse disciplinary backgrounds in the China field, from cultural studies to history to musicology, to make a timely intervention--from the historical demise of enuchism to male cross-dressing shows in contemporary Taiwan--to inaugurate a subfield in Chinese transgender studies.
Under Bright Lights by
Gay-friendly dance clubs, upmarket bars, and party circuits--such commercial venues evoke the image of a gay globe, but what happens when they are bound to a landscape of disorder, mass poverty, and urban decay? Vividly describing this world of contradictions through the prism of twenty-first-century Manila, Under Bright Lights challenges popular interpretations of the "third world queer"as a necessarily radical figure.Drawing on ethnographic research, Bobby Benedicto paints a remarkably counterintuitive portrait of gay spaces in postcolonial cities. He argues that Filipino gay men's pursuit of an elusive global gay modernity sustains the very class, gender, and racial hierarchies that structure urban life in the Philippines. Benedicto examines, for example, how practices such as driving enable the emergence of a classed gay cityscape, and how scenes of networked global cities engender discourse that positions Manila within a global system of "gay capitals."And yet he also analyzes how the fantasy of gay globality is imperiled when privileged gay men from Manila, while traveling abroad, encounter Filipino labor migrants and come face-to-face with the exclusionary racial orders that operate in gay spaces overseas. Unique in its methodological approach, Under Bright Lights employs affective, first-person storytelling techniques to capture the visceral experience of Manila and gay life in a third world city.
Absolutely Mardi Gras by
Every year the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade transforms the streets of Sydney into a colourful and noisy spectacle, celebrating the pride, diversity and creativity of gay men and lesbians. Like the exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum on which it is based, this book focuses on the extraordinary costumes made for Mardi Gras and showcases some of the most prominent designers. It goes behind the scenes of the Mardi Gras Workshop where so many wonderful floats and props have been created and explains how Mardi Gras has grown from a radical political march to become world famous. Full of colour photographs, the book covers 20 years of the parade - from fraught to fabulous
Anthology of Australian Gay and Lesbian Writing by
In this landmark collection of Australian writing spanning well over a century, an Australia emerges which is radically different from the clichéd land of bronzed lifeguards and long-suffering sheepfarmers' wives. Robert Dessaix's anthology reflects the diversity, non-conformity, and ambiguity that have always been features of Australian society. An anthology of gay themes, rather than gay writers, it includes works by most of the country's celebrated authors, including Patrick White, Thea Astley, David Malouf, Elizabeth Jolley, Frank Moorhouse, and Helen Garner, along with a number of newer writers. A rare and refreshing openness permeates this entertaining and provocative volume. Through the fiction, poetry, and drama of over forty writers, the collection traces the development of a rich variety of gay and lesbian sensibilities from colonial times to the present. Robert Dessaix provides a long and helpful introductory overview of the literature. Ranging from the poetic to the polemical, the enigmatic to the erotic, this anthology celebrates the adventurousness and sophistication of Australian cultural history.
One Dead Diva by
Paul, a 50-ish opera queen who breaks everything he touches, and Marc, a young, ditzy dancer and circuit boy, are an odd pairing as friends. As detectives, however, they are one small step from disaster. The first in a popular series of comic mysteries, this wonderfully madcap and funny novel juggles murder, mystery, farce, social satire and even romance without missing a beat.
