Queer Asia Press Release 25 June, 2008:

The Queer Asia book series is the first of its kind in the world. It opens a space for books from all disciplines on non-normative sexuality and gender cultures, identities and practices in Asia. The launch event for the new Hong Kong University Press book series was held on Monday 23 June 2008 at Hong Kong University and attended by approximately forty guests. On hand were series editors Peter Jackson (Australian National University), Helen Hok-Sze Leung (Simon Fraser University), John Nguyet Erni (Lingnan University) and Chris Berry (Goldsmiths, University of London). What is "Queer Asia"? What are the challenges and advantages, risks and new possibilities opened launching a book series under such a title? Travis Kong (Sociology, University of Hong Kong) and Yau Ching (Lingnan University) celebrated the launch of the series by debating these difficult questions. Kong expressed the hope that the series would enable more "intellectual traffic" among Asian countries, rather than just the usual flows between Asia and the West. Yau also emphasized the potential for the series to de-center Queer Studies. A lively discussion followed, with the editors and speakers answering questions and responding to comments. Queer Studies and Queer Theory originated in and are dominated by North American and European academic circles, and existing publishing has followed these tendencies. However, approximately 200 papers were presented at the 1st International Conference of Asian Queer Studies, which was convened by the AsiaPacifiQueer Network and held in Bangkok in July 2005. Fully 80 percent of the papers were by (mostly younger) scholars from Asia. This remarkable event is a testament to the explosion of academic work on Queer Asia and to its emergence as an inter-disciplinary field. Not only is there an eager desire on the part of Asian scholars to analyse local cultures, but also the insights they generate have the potential to complicate the assumptions of existing Queer Studies. In addition, there is great impetus for more collaborations and dialogues between researchers on different regional cultures within Asia. By opening a space for monographs and anthologies from this burgeoning academic field, this book series provides a valuable opportunity for developing and sustaining these initiatives. Series Editors: Chris Berry (Goldsmiths, University of London), John Nguyet Erni (Lingnan University), Peter Jackson (Australian National University), and Helen Hok-Sze Leung (Simon Fraser University). For further information, contact: Chris Berry at c.berry@gold.ac.uk Speakers and Editors Bios (in reverse alphabetical order) Yau Ching is Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at the Lingnan University in Hong Kong. An award-winning filmmaker, her works include Ho Yuk (Let's Love Hong Kong) (2002), I'm Starving (1999) and Flow (1993), among others. She has been a film critic since early 1980s, and currently writes columns for HKinema and am730 daily news. She is also a scholar in gender and sexuality studies, with books including Sexual Politics (Hong Kong: Cosmos, 2006), Sexing Shadows: a study of representation of gender and sexuality in Hong Kong Cinema (Hong Kong Film Critics Society, 2005), and Filming Margins: Tang Shu Shuen, a Forgotten Hong Kong Director (Hong Kong University Press, 2004). As a cultural activist, she has co-founded Nutong Xueshe and GDotTV.com (the first Chinese-speaking LBGTQ web TV channel), and curated for the Asian Lesbian Film Festival in Taiwan and the HK Sex Workers' Film Festival, while serving as guest curator for HK Lesbian and Gay Film Festival for several years. Helen Hok-Sze Leung is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Women's Studies at Simon Fraser University. Her research interest includes Hong Kong media culture, Chinese cinemas, queer and transgender cultural politics in Asia, and issues of nationalism and postcoloniality. She has published widely on queer cinema and culture. She is the author of Undercurrents: Queer Culture and Postcolonial Hong Kong (University of British Columbia Press and Hong Kong University Press, 2008), which will be the first book in the HKUP Queer Asia series. Dr. Travis SK Kong is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong, where he teaches sexuality, queer theory, media and cultural studies. His research interests are issues of homosexuality, HIV/AIDS, prostitution, and queer culture and politics in Chinese localities. His articles have appeared in books, encyclopedias, and journals such as Body & Society, Sexualities, and Gender, Work and Organization. He is now writing a monograph on Chinese homosexualities under the constellation of global culture. Associate Professor Peter A. Jackson is Senior Fellow in the Australian National University's Division of Pacific and Asian History. He specialises in modern Thai cultural history, with particular interests in the history of religion, the histories of gender and sexuality, and status of non-colonised Asian societies such as Thailand in relation to postcolonial analysis. In 2001, he co-founded the AsiaPacifiQueer Network to promote research on Asian and Pacific gay, transgender, and lesbian cultures and histories, and he was the main organiser of the 1st International Conference of Asian Queer Studies in Bangkok in 2005. His most recent book is AsiaPacifiQueer: Rethinking Gender and Sexuality in the Asia-Pacific, coedited with Fran Martin, Mark McLelland, and Audrey Yue. Another new book, The Ambiguous Allure of the West: Aesthetics and Power in the Making of Thai Identities, coedited with Rachel Harrison, will be published in 2009. Peter is currently researching the impact of capitalism and the print and electronic on Thailand's gay, lesbian, and transgender communities. John Nguyet Erni is Professor of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. A former recipient of the Rockefeller Fellowship for the Program on Gender, Sexuality, Health and Human Rights, he is also currently an Editorial Board Member of GLQ. His books include Unstable Frontiers: Technomedicine and the Cultural Politics of 'Curing AIDS', Internationalizing Cultural Studies (with Ackbar Abbas), and Asian Media Studies (with Siew keng Chua). Chris Berry is Professor of Film and Television Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. His research is focused on Chinese cinemas and other Chinese screen-based media, with a particular interest in gender, sexuality, and the postcolonial politics of time and space. His publications include (with Mary Farquhar) Cinema and the National: China on Screen (Columbia University Press and Hong Kong University Press, 2006); Postsocialist Cinema in Post-Mao China: The Cultural Revolution after the Cultural Revolution (New York: Routledge, 2004); and (edited with Fran Martin and Audrey Yue), Mobile Cultures: New Media and Queer Asia (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003). He is currently working on a short monograph on Stanley Kwan's Lan Yu.