Queering Gender, Sexuality, and Becoming-Human in Qing Dynasty Zhiguai : Querying the Strange Tales

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

Author: Thomas William Whyke, Melissa Shani Brown

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Publication Date: Aug 24, 2023

Number of Pages: NA pages

Language: English

Binding: Hardcover

ISBN-10: 9819942578

ISBN-13: 9789819942572