All Outputs (31)

Queer screens with Chinese characteristics?: Reimagining queer Chinese screen studies in the twenty-first century (2024)
Journal Article
Zhao, J. J., & Bao, H. (in press). Queer screens with Chinese characteristics?: Reimagining queer Chinese screen studies in the twenty-first century. Journal of Chinese Cinemas, https://doi.org/10.1080/17508061.2024.2312677

This introductory essay briefly reviews existing academic understandings and sociocultural imbrications of queer representations of and research on contemporary Chinese-language media and culture. We propose to conceptualize ‘queer Chinese screen stu... Read More about Queer screens with Chinese characteristics?: Reimagining queer Chinese screen studies in the twenty-first century.

Digital video activism: Fan Popo’s queer Asian diasporic politics (2023)
Journal Article
Bao, H. (2023). Digital video activism: Fan Popo’s queer Asian diasporic politics. Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 17(1), 10-23. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508061.2024.2312681

This article examines queer Chinese filmmaker Fan Popo's fiction films and curatorial practices since he moved from Beijing to Berlin in 2017. It focuses on how Fan's subject position as queer Asian diaspora impacts on his filmmaking, identity and po... Read More about Digital video activism: Fan Popo’s queer Asian diasporic politics.

The wedding complex: Chinese queer performance art as social activism (2023)
Journal Article
Bao, H. (2023). The wedding complex: Chinese queer performance art as social activism. Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, 10(1-2), 39-63. https://doi.org/10.1386/jcca_00075_1

Through public, intentional and interventionist displays of the queer body, queer Chinese artists have used performance art for identity expression, community building and social activism. This article focuses on some of these queer performance artwo... Read More about The wedding complex: Chinese queer performance art as social activism.

In Queer Memory: Mediating Queer Chinese History in Digital Video Documentaries (2023)
Journal Article
Bao, H. (2023). In Queer Memory: Mediating Queer Chinese History in Digital Video Documentaries. Panoptikum, 2023(29), 94-114. https://doi.org/10.26881/pan.2023.29.06

This article examines the digital and cinematic mediation of queer memory in four independent Chinese documentaries: Queer China, "Comrade" China (dir. Cui Zi"en 2008), Our Story (dir. Yang Yang, 2011), We Are Here (dir. Shi Tou and Jing Zhao, 2016)... Read More about In Queer Memory: Mediating Queer Chinese History in Digital Video Documentaries.

‘Sissy capital’ and the governance of non-normative genders in China’s platform economy (2023)
Journal Article
Wang, S., & Bao, H. (2023). ‘Sissy capital’ and the governance of non-normative genders in China’s platform economy. China Information, 37(3), 342-362. https://doi.org/10.1177/0920203X221147481

This article examines Chinese government censorship in the intersection between queer and fan cultures and the government’s regulation of big tech companies and platform economies in the 2020s conjuncture. In the context of booming platform industrie... Read More about ‘Sissy capital’ and the governance of non-normative genders in China’s platform economy.

Curating queerness and queering curation: Exhibiting queer Chinese art in Europe (2022)
Journal Article
Bao, H. (2022). Curating queerness and queering curation: Exhibiting queer Chinese art in Europe. Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, 9(1-2), 313-332. https://doi.org/10.1386/JCCA_00069_1

This article examines the curatorial strategies of the Secret Love exhibition, the biggest queer Chinese art exhibition outside Asia to date. The exhibition brought together 150 works created by 27 queer Chinese artists. It first took place at the Mu... Read More about Curating queerness and queering curation: Exhibiting queer Chinese art in Europe.

The new generation: Contemporary Chinese art in the diaspora (2022)
Journal Article
Bao, H. (2022). The new generation: Contemporary Chinese art in the diaspora. Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, 9(1-2), 3-17. https://doi.org/10.1386/jcca_00053_2

This Special Issue of Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art focuses on the social significance and political relevance of diaspora Chinese art in the contemporary era. Although artists and authors may hold different stances towards Chinese and diaspora... Read More about The new generation: Contemporary Chinese art in the diaspora.

'Unity in Desire': Imagining Queer Bandung (2022)
Journal Article
Bao, H. (2022). 'Unity in Desire': Imagining Queer Bandung. Room One Thousand, 10,

This article introduces the Queer Bandung project as an exemplary site of transnational solidarity amongst queer of color and strategies of queer decolonization operating at a grassroots level outside the purview of nation states. The research proces... Read More about 'Unity in Desire': Imagining Queer Bandung.

Ways of seeing transgender in independent Chinese cinema (2022)
Journal Article
Bao, H. (2022). Ways of seeing transgender in independent Chinese cinema. Feminist Media Studies, 22(5), 1278-1281. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2022.2077798

This article examines the history of representing transgender people in independent films produced in mainland China from the 1990s to present. Tracing a brief history of the transgender representation on Chinese screen, this article illustrates the... Read More about Ways of seeing transgender in independent Chinese cinema.

Sharing Food, Vulnerability and Intimacy in a Global Pandemic: The Digital Art of the Chinese Diaspora in Europe (2021)
Journal Article
Bao, H. (2021). Sharing Food, Vulnerability and Intimacy in a Global Pandemic: The Digital Art of the Chinese Diaspora in Europe. Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, 8(2-3), 129-145. https://doi.org/10.1386/JCCA_00041_1

This article examines the digital artworks created by three Chinese diaspora artists based in Europe: Berlin-based queer filmmaker Fan Popo’s short digital video Lerne Deutsch in meiner Küche (‘Learn German in my kitchen’), London-based performance a... Read More about Sharing Food, Vulnerability and Intimacy in a Global Pandemic: The Digital Art of the Chinese Diaspora in Europe.

What Does China’s Cultural War Say About Culture? (2021)
Journal Article
BAO, H. (2021). What Does China’s Cultural War Say About Culture?. Film Quarterly,

A ‘cultural war’ is taking place in China: from the banning of effeminate young men on film and television to the censorship of boys’ love fan fiction; from the restriction of video game hours for young people to the banning of commercial tutoring fo... Read More about What Does China’s Cultural War Say About Culture?.

Envisioning and Enacting a Pan-Asian Political Identity: The Cultural Politics of the First ‘Stop Asian Hate UK’ Protests (2021)
Journal Article
Bao, H. (2021). Envisioning and Enacting a Pan-Asian Political Identity: The Cultural Politics of the First ‘Stop Asian Hate UK’ Protests. Sociological Review, https://doi.org/10.51428/tsr.crwi5533

This article focuses on the opportunities and challenges of the newly emerged pan-Asian political identity following the recent transnational ‘Stop Asian Hate’ movement. Using the recent ‘Stop Asian Hate’ Birmingham rally as a case study, this articl... Read More about Envisioning and Enacting a Pan-Asian Political Identity: The Cultural Politics of the First ‘Stop Asian Hate UK’ Protests.

A Queer Way of Life: Ren Hang’s Photography (2021)
Journal Article
Bao, H. (2021). A Queer Way of Life: Ren Hang’s Photography. Yishu, 20(1), 67-80

This article focuses on queer representations in Ren’s artworks gathered from the private collections of his friends. In doing so, I hope to expand on the existing critique of heteronormative essentialism in contemporary art and popular culture in Ch... Read More about A Queer Way of Life: Ren Hang’s Photography.

“A cool kid” Queer theory travels to China (2020)
Journal Article
Bao, H. (2021). “A cool kid” Queer theory travels to China. Translation and Interpreting Studies, 16(2), 219-239. https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.19069.bao

This article traces the historical moment when queer theory first arrived in mainland China in the early 2000s by comparing and contrasting two translated texts in Chinese: Wang Fengzhen’s book Guaiyi Lilun [Peculiar Theory] and Li Yinhe’s book Ku’er... Read More about “A cool kid” Queer theory travels to China.

The queer Global South: Transnational video activism between China and Africa (2020)
Journal Article
Bao, H. (2020). The queer Global South: Transnational video activism between China and Africa. Global Media and China, 5(3), 294-318. https://doi.org/10.1177/2059436420949985

© The Author(s) 2020. In this article, I examine grassroots cinematic connections between China and Africa by using Queer University, short for the Queer University Video Capacity Building Training Program, a 3-year (2017–2019) participatory video pr... Read More about The queer Global South: Transnational video activism between China and Africa.

‘Anti-domestic violence little vaccine’: A Wuhan-based feminist activist campaign during COVID-19 (2020)
Journal Article
BAO, H. (2020). ‘Anti-domestic violence little vaccine’: A Wuhan-based feminist activist campaign during COVID-19. Interface: a journal for and about social movements, 12(1), 53 – 63

In this short essay, I introduce the ‘Anti-Domestic Violence Little Vaccine’ campaign in China during the COVID-19. After a brief introduction of the campaign by using first-person accounts from the organiser Guo Jing, I will then sum up some of the... Read More about ‘Anti-domestic violence little vaccine’: A Wuhan-based feminist activist campaign during COVID-19.

‘We Are Here’: the politics of memory in narrating China’s queer feminist history (2020)
Journal Article
Bao, H. (2020). ‘We Are Here’: the politics of memory in narrating China’s queer feminist history. Continuum, 34(4), 514-529. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2020.1785079

© 2020, © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This article examines the politics of narrating feminist and queer histories in contemporary China. Focusing on Zhao Jing and Shi Tou’s 2015 film, We Are Here, a documentary made... Read More about ‘We Are Here’: the politics of memory in narrating China’s queer feminist history.

Queering international development: the “pleasure principle” in the participatory video The Lucky One (2020)
Journal Article
Bao, H. (2020). Queering international development: the “pleasure principle” in the participatory video The Lucky One. Feminist Media Studies, 20(4), 530-547. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2020.1754632

© 2020, © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This article focuses on the politics of representing HIV/AIDS in the 2011 documentary The Lucky One (宠儿), jointly made by Chinese filmmaker and queer activist He Xiaopei and Zh... Read More about Queering international development: the “pleasure principle” in the participatory video The Lucky One.

Queer disidentification: Or how to cook chinese noodles in a global pandemic? (2020)
Journal Article
Bao, H. (2020). Queer disidentification: Or how to cook chinese noodles in a global pandemic?. PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 17(1-2), 85-90. https://doi.org/10.5130/pjmis.v17i1-2.7299

© 2021 by the author(s). In this article, I offer a critical analysis of a video artwork titled Lerne Deutsch in meiner Küche (Learn German in My Kitchen) (2020), created by Berlin-based queer filmmaker Popo Fan. By focusing on Fan’s negotiation of r... Read More about Queer disidentification: Or how to cook chinese noodles in a global pandemic?.

Queer comrades: towards a postsocialist queer politics (2019)
Journal Article
Bao, H. (2019). Queer comrades: towards a postsocialist queer politics. Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture, 24-37. https://doi.org/10.3898/soun.73.03.2019

Perhaps one of the most fascinating changes in the modern Chinese language in the past century has been the use of the term tongzhi (同志). In its early twentieth-century sense of ‘comrade’, tongzhi was widely used as an honorific in China’s revoluti... Read More about Queer comrades: towards a postsocialist queer politics.