10.12.2020Taiwan Studies Lecture Series: From Confucian Morality to a Glocal Queer Discourse: The Outstanding Case of Taiwan

Lecturer

Dr. Jens Damm (ERCCT - Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen)

Date and Time

December 10, 2020, 5:30 - 7 pm

About the Lecture

This lecture will provide a historical overview of Taiwan’s women’s and gender discourses with a specific focus on issues of same-sex desire/relations/LGBTQ. In the first decades after World War same-sex relations were mostly ignored and ridiculed. Taiwan was regarded as a Confucian society unchallenged by Western values. This changed when, in the 1970s and 1980s, Lü Xiulian started to write on ‘New Feminism’ and linked Taiwan’s feminism with the democratization and pluralization of the island, although she still adopted a conservative attitude. The much more progressive ‘Awakening’, a publishing house and a meeting point for activists, then shaped Taiwanese gender research and opened it up for new topics. More recently, there has been a growing interest in gender studies, including LGBTQ issues. At the same time, however, a conservative and patriarchal attitude in some writings, especially in medical studies, has been prevalent. These conservative writings are mainly directed against LGBTQ issues, and build on a combination of ‘Christian values’ with more ‘traditional’ Han Chinese (Hoklo/Hakka) values which were especially strong in their unsuccessful struggle against marriage equality in Taiwan.

Note

The talk will be held online. Please register with Simona Grano before December 9.

Organization

Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies - Chinese Studies - Taiwan Studies Project