Transgender China

In the emerging field of queer Asian studies, scholars to date have paid scant attention to transgender issues. Meanwhile, despite its already sophisticated focus on gender non-conformity, Western queer studies exhibits an equally pressing problem: the conspicuous absence of empirical and theoretical investigations of transgenderism in Northeast Asian society and culture. This volume, under the editorship of Howard Chiang, responds to the convergence of these limitations. By bringing together experts with diverse disciplinary backgrounds in the China field, from cultural studies to history to musicology, Transgender China makes a timely intervention whereby emergent Sinologists explore previously untapped terrains—from the historical demise of enuchism to male cross-dressing shows in contemporary Taiwan—to inaugurate a subfield in Chinese transgender studies. Howard Chiang is Assistant Professor of Modern Chinese History at the University of Warwick, UK.