Queer Homecoming as Tactics of Intervention, with EK Tan

In this presentation, Prof. Tan will discuss the concept of “queer homecoming” as a critical intervention into the normative patrilineal kinship structure in Sinophone societies, defined by traditional family values such as those of Confucianism. He will argue that queer homecoming, as intervention, enables the articulation of alternative kinship structures in mainstream cultural expressions to destabilize the myth of consanguinity among Sinophone communities in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and Asian America. By rethinking the implications of concepts such as the familiar and the familial, he will explore how queer identities and queerness challenge the dominant discourse of heteronormative kinship and its marginalization of minority groups in non-rights-based societies. To illustrate how queer subjects navigate and negotiate a livable space within the institution of family and the nation state, he will introduce two activist movements––Pink Dot Singapore and Taiwan Same-Sex Wedding Banquet (同婚宴–辦/伴桌). Through an examination of campaign videos for these initiatives circulated on social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Line TV, he will contend that queer activism in these two locales adopts the narrative of kinship as a strategic approach to initiating dialogues with both the public and the state in order to advocate for LGBTQ rights.

E.K. Tan is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies in the departments of English and Asian & Asian American Studies at Stoney Brook University and a current resident fellow at the National Humanities Institute in North Carolina. He is the author of Rethinking Chineseness: Translational Sinophone Identities in the Nanyang Literary World. His essays have appeared in publications such as Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Prism: Theory and Modern Chinese Literature, Sun Yat-Sen Journal of Humanities, and Journal of Chinese Cinemas. At present, he is working on two projects tentatively titled “Queer Homecoming: Translocal Remapping of Sinophone Kinship” and “Mandarinization and Its Impact on Sinophone Cultural Production: A Transcolonial Comparison of Ethnic China, Singapore and Taiwan.” He also serves as Chair for the Society of Sinophone Studies (2022–2025) and Conference Committee Chair for the American Comparative Literature Association (2021–2024).

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