Episode 7: Performing Gender (and Gender Bending Icons)

Queering Premodern Asia is a limited series and the 5th season of the Nuances podcast about Our Asian Stories. Each episode explores different aspects of sexual diversity in premodern Asia with commentary from guest scholars. Episodes are divided into a narrative portion, and a discussion with a guest co-host from the queer Asian community.

Ep. 7: Performing Gender

Introduction & content warnings
Gender roles
Performing gender in Indonesia, Philippines, Japan
Cross-dressing in theater in Korea, China, India, Japan
Gender bender icons from China, Vietnam, Korea
Gender boundaries in premodern China, Japan and Iran
Conclusion
Discussion with co-host Stella Gold
Outro

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References:

McBride, Richard D. “Silla Buddhism and the Hwarang.” Korean Studies, vol. 34, 2010, pp. 54–89. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23720147. Accessed 29 Sept. 2024.

ANDAYA, Barbara Watson. “Speaking to the Spirits: Thinking Comparatively about Women in Asian Indigenous Beliefs.” Gender in Focus: Identities, Codes, Stereotypes and Politics, edited by Andreea Zamfira et al., 1st ed., Verlag Barbara Budrich, 2018, pp. 41–63. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvddzn5f.4. Accessed 28 Sept. 2024.

Hsieh, Ellen, ‘The Power of Images in the Boxer Codex and Cultural Convergence in Early Spanish Manila’, in Maria Cruz Berrocal, and Cheng-hwa Tsang (eds), Historical Archaeology of Early Modern Colonialism in Asia-Pacific: The Asia-Pacific Region (Gainesville, FL, 2017; online edn, Florida Scholarship Online, 24 May 2018), https://doi.org/10.5744/florida/9780813054766.003.0006, accessed 8 Oct. 2024.

Hwang, Merose. “RITUAL SPECIALISTS IN COLONIAL DRAG: SHAMANIC INTERVENTIONS IN 1920S KOREA.” Queer Korea, edited by Todd A. Henry, Duke University Press, 2020, pp. 55–89. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11hpn09.5. Accessed 28 Sept. 2024.

Zhang, Yan, and Hui Liu. “Individual’s gender ideology and happiness in China.” Chinese sociological review vol. 54,3 (2022): 252-277. doi:10.1080/21620555.2021.1871727

Schmidt-Hori, Sachi. Tales of Idolized Boys: Male-Male Love in Medieval Japanese Buddhist Narratives. University of Hawaii Press, 2021.

Sang, Tze-lan Deborah. The Emerging Lesbian: Female Same-Sex Desire in Modern China. University of Chicago Press, 2003.

Barnstone, T., & Chou, P. (2005). 113 – Wu Zao. In The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry. essay, Anchor Books.

Epstein, Maram. “Bound by Convention: Women’s Writing and the Feminine Voice in Eighteenth-Century China.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, vol. 26, no. 1, 2007, pp. 97–105. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20455309. Accessed 13 Oct. 2024.

Pflugfelder, Gregory M. “Strange Fates. Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in Torikaebaya Monogatari.” Monumenta Nipponica, vol. 47, no. 3, 1992, pp. 347–68. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2385103. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.

Hansen, Kathryn. “Making Women Visible: Gender and Race Cross-Dressing in the Parsi Theatre.” Theatre Journal, vol. 51, no. 2, 1999, pp. 127–47. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25068647. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.

Najmabadi, Afsaneh. Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity. University of California Press, 2005.

Davies, Sharyn Graham (2010). Gender Diversity in Indonesia: Sexuality, Islam, and queer selves. Routledge. pp. 120–137.

Davies, Sharyn Graham (2007). Women’s Sexualities and Masculinities in a Globalizing Asia. Palgrave Macmillan US. pp. 152–167.

Carl, John D. (2011). Think Sociology (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River: Pearson. pp. 78–79.

Yun, Zhang. “A Cultural History of the Chinese Character ‘Ta (She)’—On the Invention and Identification of a New Female Pronoun.” Harvard-Yenching Institute, 2 Dec. 2013,

Additional resources

Japan’s gender-bending history

Rina Sawayama’s This Hell

Guest scholars:

Sachi Schmidt-Hori, professor of Japanese literature & culture at Dartmouth College.
Wu CunCun, ⁠⁠professor of Chinese literature at the University of Hong Kong⁠⁠.

Guest co-host bio:

Guest co-host bio

Stella Gold is a queer and nonbinary Rebirth + Wealth Coach for changemakers and comes from a lineage of activists. They are the founder of My Gold Standard, a believer in wealth activism, pro liberation from all oppressive systems, and collective care. They believe in using business as an ecosystem for financial solidarity for yourself AND the collective. Their ancestors are filipinx, romanian jewish, scottish, irish, chinese, italian, iranian, french, german, british, and likely so much more. They hold values and beliefs in abolitionism, anarchism, decolonization, collective and ancestral liberation, and leftism. Instagram | LinkedIn | Web