Joseph N Goh
Biographic Data
| ID | 1047412 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Joseph N Goh |
| GIVEN NAMES | Joseph N |
| FAMILY NAME | Goh |
| SIGNATURE | GOH J N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Monash University Malaysia |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5442-6785 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 6 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Journal of gender studies: Sheila Cunnison Prize
Dr. Feona Attwood: Can you tell us something about yourself, how you have come to work as an academic, and how you developed the research you presented in your winning article ‘Everyday precarious
The Pursuit of Deviant Happiness and Queer Spiritual Well-being Among Malaysian Gay Men: A Theological Proposal
Although their intimate lives are often adversely affected by homonegative laws and conservative religio-cultural attitudes, many Malaysian gay men formulate affirming materialist-discursive strategies to pursue personal happiness. Some Christian gay men, for instance, challenge conservative ecclesiastical notions of same-sex attraction as iniquitous and generate life-giving spiritualities for themselves that contribute to a sense of inner joy an…
Symposium: From coming out to coming in: Roundtable conversation among Southeast Asian queer theologians
Through a roundtable conversation via Zoom, teachers, pastors, and graduate students discussed the place of gender, citizenship, and faith in their identity formation and social accountability to articulate a hermeneutical lens specific to Southeast Asian contexts that shape and critique queer identities. These participants—primarily ministers, theological students, and seminary formators—engaged in organic, fluid, and multifocal turns to capture…
Misrecognitions and re-recognitions of Malaysian trans-modified bodies: Possibilities for theopastoral ameliorations through a hermeneutic of the risen Christ
In proposing a parallel between the early disciples' initial misrecognition of the resurrected Jesus and contemporary conservative churches' condemnation of Gender Affirmation Surgery, I argue in this article that a hermeneutic of the risen Christ can suggest reasons behind conservative Malaysian churches' transnegative attitudes towards surgical modification and serve as an alternative interpretive lens to remap more affirming theopastoral strat…
Introduction: Coming in and finding ground: Genders, sexualities, and theopastoral imaginations in Southeast Asia
Everyday precarity, oblique hostility and gendered liveability among Malaysian transgender men
Although a gamut of sensational issues affecting transgender communities in Malaysia proliferates in academic scholarship and activism reports, and transgender experiences of tragedy and violence are often amplified in the news media, less attention is given to the everyday forms of aggression and vulnerability that transgender people encounter in seemingly innocuous spaces. Guided by a Constructivist Grounded Theory Methodology, I analyse select…
Social and cognitive dimensions of collaboration in informal learning spaces: Malaysian social science students’ perspectives
The purpose of the present study is to attain a better understanding of Collaborative Learning in Informal Spaces (CLIS) by addressing the nature of learning activities that will trigger socio-cognitive conflicts and the kind of socio-emotional challenges experienced in CLIS. To this end, research was conducted over four weeks where tasks were divided into pre-CLIS, during CLIS session and during CLIS presentation. The data in the form of video-s…
Malaysian Roman Catholic Transgender Men, Simultaneous Failures in Gender and Religion, and Customisations of Spirituality and Ethical Living
In conservative, mostly Malay-Muslim Malaysia, transgender people are frequently articulated in mainstream Muslim and Christian discourses as gendered anomalies and recalcitrant religious dissidents. Due to the fact that normative gender identities and expressions are generally indexed as valid and, thus, 'successful' indicators of social and religious coherence among Malaysians, transgender people who are unable and/or unwilling to abide by regi…
Trans/imagining God: Articulations of individualised spirituality among Muslim and Christian transgender men
Malaysian transgender people often experience suspicion, discrimination and rejection from their religious institutions. This article, written at the intersection of transgender and spirituality studies, aims to decipher the complexities of trans/imagining God, or formulations of individualised spirituality, in the lives of four transgender men. Using a constructivist grounded theory methodology, and assisted by Pargament’s notion of spiritual tr…
Gay Men, the Invention of Ecclesial Injustice, and Aspirations for Redress and Renewal
Unlocking Orthodoxies for Inclusive Theologies: Queer Alternatives
Mak nyahs and the dismantling of dehumanisation: Framing empowerment strategies of Malaysian male-to-female transsexuals in the 2000s
The unrelenting ill-treatment suffered by mak nyahs, or Malaysian pre-operative and post-operative male-to-female transsexuals, indicates a steady process of dehumanisation that besieges mak nyahs in contemporary Malaysia. Nevertheless, the 2000s have seen a groundswell of strategies by mak nyahs to dismantle forces that seek to dehumanise them, and thus to embrace self-empowerment. By analysing online media resources, information from communicat…
God>Cursing>Shaming>Blessing>Pride
This response to Joy Ladin's work attempts to articulate how a reconceptualization of God in terms of a “cursing” and “shaming” God might be theologically helpful. Rather than understanding God as cursing transgender people who ought to be ashamed of themselves, this response investigates what it is that God might curse, shame, bless, and bring to pride in relation to transgender people
An Ecclesiological Praxis of Inclusivity toward Sexual Diversity and HIV: Learning from Singapore and the Philippines
Many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people ( LGBT ), and people living with HIV ( PLHIV ) feel estranged from and misunderstood by their Christian communities. Churches, in turn, continue to wrestle with issues of theology and pastoral care pertaining to LGBT and PHIV . In response, this article aims to construct an ecclesiological praxis of inclusivity toward LGBT and PLHIV . Framed by Elisabeth Schüsler Fiorenza’s notion of Jesus’ basil…
Untying tongues: Negotiations and innovations of faith and gender among Malaysian Christian trans men
Although Malaysian trans men experience discrimination and stigmatisation, their vicissitudes are under-documented. This article uncovers the negotiations and innovations of Malaysian Christian trans men in relation to their Christian faith. By using Constructivist Grounded Theory Methodology to analyse and interpret selected narratives of four Christian trans men, and building on Jason Cromwell’s theoretical insistence on meaningful self-represe…
Sexy Media Dissidents: State Regulation, Dissidence, Pornography and Gay Men in Malaysia
Living Out Sexuality and Faith: Body Admissions of Malaysian Gay and Bisexual Men
Sexuality, religion and faith often have complex and conflicting interactions, on both personal and societal levels. Numerous studies have been conducted on queer subjects, but they have predominantly focused on ‘Western’ expressions of faith and queer identities. This book contributes to the wider scholarship on queer subjects by drawing on actual lived experiences of self-identifying gay and bisexual men in Malaysia. It discusses what we can le…
Bridging benedictions, enlightening embodiment: Interpretations of spirit through desire among gay and bisexual Malaysian men
Malaysian gay and bisexual men are often disparaged as ‘sinful’ and devoid of their institutional faith values in a country that criminalizes same-sex behaviour. Nonetheless, some men negotiate, rearrange and interpret their spirit – or sense of the sacred – through desire – or sexuality – in life-giving ways. By adopting a Constructivist Grounded Theory Methodology, and assisted by an analytical framework of queer transgression, this article dra…
From Polluted to Prophetic Bodies: Theo-Pastoral Lessons from the Lived Experiences of Gay, HIV-Positive Christian Men in Singapore
This article garners theo-pastoral lessons from the lived realities of gay, HIV-positive Christian men in Singapore. Such lessons are premised on the belief that gay HIV-positive men are prophets with lessons of life and faith for Christian communities, rather than polluted victims of a disease who simply merit pastoral assistance. The analysis of the narratives of three gay, HIV-positive Christian men through a Constructivist Grounded Theory Met…
Navigating sexual honesty: A qualitative study of the meaning-making of pornography consumption among gay-identifying Malaysian men
Malaysian laws prohibit the personal and public production, dissemination and storage of written, pictorial and digital representations which are deemed indecent and obscene, including pornography. In a country where sexuality remains a largely taboo subject, and where any sexual identities, behaviours and acts that fall outside of heteronormative socio-cultural and religio-political realms are hastily upbraided, prohibitions of pornography share…
Imaginative assemblages of transcendent/desire: Non-heteronormative Malaysian men speak up and talk back
Many non-heteronormative Malaysian men find themselves on the receiving end of political, socio-cultural, and religious condemnations of their sexual identifyings and expressions. Their lived realities are often considered invalid, including from religious and theological perspectives. This article is a queer socio-theological project that examines the lived realities of six non-heteronormative Malaysian men who speak up and talk back on their se…
Queering Migrations Towards, From, and Beyond Asia
Goh and Michael Sepidoza Campos PART I: TOWARDS ASIA 1. Should I Stay or Should I Go? Sexual Preferences and Migration in Japan Jamie Paquin 2. Made in Brazil? Sexuality, Intimacy, and Identity Formation among Japanese Brazilian Queer Immigrants in Japan Hugo Cordova Quero 3. Desire, Nation and Faith: A Roundtable among Emerging Queer Asian/Pacific Islander Religion Scholars (EQARS) Hugo Cordova Quero, Joseph N. Goh, Elizabeth Leung, Michael Sepi…
Fracturing interwoven heteronormativities in Malaysian Malay-Muslim masculinity: A research note
My aim in this article is to problematise the heteronormalised interlacings of citizenship, ethnicity, masculinity, ascendancy, morality, matrimony and religion among Malaysian Malay-Muslim men through queer analyses. The civil partnership of Malaysian Ariff Alfian Rosli caused considerable tumult among many Malay-Muslims in Malaysia, dislodging an entrenched image of heteronormative masculinity. I argue that Ariff’s resoluteness in faith has irr…
Everyday precarity, oblique hostility and gendered liveability among Malaysian transgender men
Although a gamut of sensational issues affecting transgender communities in Malaysia proliferates in academic scholarship and activism reports, and transgender experiences of tragedy and violence are often amplified in the news media, less attention is given to the everyday forms of aggression and vulnerability that transgender people encounter in seemingly innocuous spaces. Guided by a Constructivist Grounded Theory Methodology, I analyse select…
Untying tongues: Negotiations and innovations of faith and gender among Malaysian Christian trans men
Although Malaysian trans men experience discrimination and stigmatisation, their vicissitudes are under-documented. This article uncovers the negotiations and innovations of Malaysian Christian trans men in relation to their Christian faith. By using Constructivist Grounded Theory Methodology to analyse and interpret selected narratives of four Christian trans men, and building on Jason Cromwell’s theoretical insistence on meaningful self-represe…
Sexy Media Dissidents: State Regulation, Dissidence, Pornography and Gay Men in Malaysia
Navigating sexual honesty: A qualitative study of the meaning-making of pornography consumption among gay-identifying Malaysian men
Malaysian laws prohibit the personal and public production, dissemination and storage of written, pictorial and digital representations which are deemed indecent and obscene, including pornography. In a country where sexuality remains a largely taboo subject, and where any sexual identities, behaviours and acts that fall outside of heteronormative socio-cultural and religio-political realms are hastily upbraided, prohibitions of pornography share…
Imaginative assemblages of transcendent/desire: Non-heteronormative Malaysian men speak up and talk back
Many non-heteronormative Malaysian men find themselves on the receiving end of political, socio-cultural, and religious condemnations of their sexual identifyings and expressions. Their lived realities are often considered invalid, including from religious and theological perspectives. This article is a queer socio-theological project that examines the lived realities of six non-heteronormative Malaysian men who speak up and talk back on their se…
Queering Migrations Towards, From, and Beyond Asia
Goh and Michael Sepidoza Campos PART I: TOWARDS ASIA 1. Should I Stay or Should I Go? Sexual Preferences and Migration in Japan Jamie Paquin 2. Made in Brazil? Sexuality, Intimacy, and Identity Formation among Japanese Brazilian Queer Immigrants in Japan Hugo Cordova Quero 3. Desire, Nation and Faith: A Roundtable among Emerging Queer Asian/Pacific Islander Religion Scholars (EQARS) Hugo Cordova Quero, Joseph N. Goh, Elizabeth Leung, Michael Sepi…
Fracturing interwoven heteronormativities in Malaysian Malay-Muslim masculinity: A research note
My aim in this article is to problematise the heteronormalised interlacings of citizenship, ethnicity, masculinity, ascendancy, morality, matrimony and religion among Malaysian Malay-Muslim men through queer analyses. The civil partnership of Malaysian Ariff Alfian Rosli caused considerable tumult among many Malay-Muslims in Malaysia, dislodging an entrenched image of heteronormative masculinity. I argue that Ariff’s resoluteness in faith has irr…
Imaginative assemblages of transcendent/desire: Non-heteronormative Malaysian men speak up and talk back
Many non-heteronormative Malaysian men find themselves on the receiving end of political, socio-cultural, and religious condemnations of their sexual identifyings and expressions. Their lived realities are often considered invalid, including from religious and theological perspectives. This article is a queer socio-theological project that examines the lived realities of six non-heteronormative Malaysian men who speak up and talk back on their se…
Living Out Sexuality and Faith: Body Admissions of Malaysian Gay and Bisexual Men
Sexuality, religion and faith often have complex and conflicting interactions, on both personal and societal levels. Numerous studies have been conducted on queer subjects, but they have predominantly focused on ‘Western’ expressions of faith and queer identities. This book contributes to the wider scholarship on queer subjects by drawing on actual lived experiences of self-identifying gay and bisexual men in Malaysia. It discusses what we can le…
Bridging benedictions, enlightening embodiment: Interpretations of spirit through desire among gay and bisexual Malaysian men
Malaysian gay and bisexual men are often disparaged as ‘sinful’ and devoid of their institutional faith values in a country that criminalizes same-sex behaviour. Nonetheless, some men negotiate, rearrange and interpret their spirit – or sense of the sacred – through desire – or sexuality – in life-giving ways. By adopting a Constructivist Grounded Theory Methodology, and assisted by an analytical framework of queer transgression, this article dra…
From Polluted to Prophetic Bodies: Theo-Pastoral Lessons from the Lived Experiences of Gay, HIV-Positive Christian Men in Singapore
This article garners theo-pastoral lessons from the lived realities of gay, HIV-positive Christian men in Singapore. Such lessons are premised on the belief that gay HIV-positive men are prophets with lessons of life and faith for Christian communities, rather than polluted victims of a disease who simply merit pastoral assistance. The analysis of the narratives of three gay, HIV-positive Christian men through a Constructivist Grounded Theory Met…
Navigating sexual honesty: A qualitative study of the meaning-making of pornography consumption among gay-identifying Malaysian men
Malaysian laws prohibit the personal and public production, dissemination and storage of written, pictorial and digital representations which are deemed indecent and obscene, including pornography. In a country where sexuality remains a largely taboo subject, and where any sexual identities, behaviours and acts that fall outside of heteronormative socio-cultural and religio-political realms are hastily upbraided, prohibitions of pornography share…
Sexy Media Dissidents: State Regulation, Dissidence, Pornography and Gay Men in Malaysia
Unlocking Orthodoxies for Inclusive Theologies: Queer Alternatives
Mak nyahs and the dismantling of dehumanisation: Framing empowerment strategies of Malaysian male-to-female transsexuals in the 2000s
The unrelenting ill-treatment suffered by mak nyahs, or Malaysian pre-operative and post-operative male-to-female transsexuals, indicates a steady process of dehumanisation that besieges mak nyahs in contemporary Malaysia. Nevertheless, the 2000s have seen a groundswell of strategies by mak nyahs to dismantle forces that seek to dehumanise them, and thus to embrace self-empowerment. By analysing online media resources, information from communicat…
God>Cursing>Shaming>Blessing>Pride
This response to Joy Ladin's work attempts to articulate how a reconceptualization of God in terms of a “cursing” and “shaming” God might be theologically helpful. Rather than understanding God as cursing transgender people who ought to be ashamed of themselves, this response investigates what it is that God might curse, shame, bless, and bring to pride in relation to transgender people
An Ecclesiological Praxis of Inclusivity toward Sexual Diversity and HIV: Learning from Singapore and the Philippines
Many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people ( LGBT ), and people living with HIV ( PLHIV ) feel estranged from and misunderstood by their Christian communities. Churches, in turn, continue to wrestle with issues of theology and pastoral care pertaining to LGBT and PHIV . In response, this article aims to construct an ecclesiological praxis of inclusivity toward LGBT and PLHIV . Framed by Elisabeth Schüsler Fiorenza’s notion of Jesus’ basil…
Untying tongues: Negotiations and innovations of faith and gender among Malaysian Christian trans men
Although Malaysian trans men experience discrimination and stigmatisation, their vicissitudes are under-documented. This article uncovers the negotiations and innovations of Malaysian Christian trans men in relation to their Christian faith. By using Constructivist Grounded Theory Methodology to analyse and interpret selected narratives of four Christian trans men, and building on Jason Cromwell’s theoretical insistence on meaningful self-represe…
Trans/imagining God: Articulations of individualised spirituality among Muslim and Christian transgender men
Malaysian transgender people often experience suspicion, discrimination and rejection from their religious institutions. This article, written at the intersection of transgender and spirituality studies, aims to decipher the complexities of trans/imagining God, or formulations of individualised spirituality, in the lives of four transgender men. Using a constructivist grounded theory methodology, and assisted by Pargament’s notion of spiritual tr…
Gay Men, the Invention of Ecclesial Injustice, and Aspirations for Redress and Renewal
Social and cognitive dimensions of collaboration in informal learning spaces: Malaysian social science students’ perspectives
The purpose of the present study is to attain a better understanding of Collaborative Learning in Informal Spaces (CLIS) by addressing the nature of learning activities that will trigger socio-cognitive conflicts and the kind of socio-emotional challenges experienced in CLIS. To this end, research was conducted over four weeks where tasks were divided into pre-CLIS, during CLIS session and during CLIS presentation. The data in the form of video-s…
Malaysian Roman Catholic Transgender Men, Simultaneous Failures in Gender and Religion, and Customisations of Spirituality and Ethical Living
In conservative, mostly Malay-Muslim Malaysia, transgender people are frequently articulated in mainstream Muslim and Christian discourses as gendered anomalies and recalcitrant religious dissidents. Due to the fact that normative gender identities and expressions are generally indexed as valid and, thus, 'successful' indicators of social and religious coherence among Malaysians, transgender people who are unable and/or unwilling to abide by regi…
The Pursuit of Deviant Happiness and Queer Spiritual Well-being Among Malaysian Gay Men: A Theological Proposal
Although their intimate lives are often adversely affected by homonegative laws and conservative religio-cultural attitudes, many Malaysian gay men formulate affirming materialist-discursive strategies to pursue personal happiness. Some Christian gay men, for instance, challenge conservative ecclesiastical notions of same-sex attraction as iniquitous and generate life-giving spiritualities for themselves that contribute to a sense of inner joy an…
Symposium: From coming out to coming in: Roundtable conversation among Southeast Asian queer theologians
Through a roundtable conversation via Zoom, teachers, pastors, and graduate students discussed the place of gender, citizenship, and faith in their identity formation and social accountability to articulate a hermeneutical lens specific to Southeast Asian contexts that shape and critique queer identities. These participants—primarily ministers, theological students, and seminary formators—engaged in organic, fluid, and multifocal turns to capture…
Misrecognitions and re-recognitions of Malaysian trans-modified bodies: Possibilities for theopastoral ameliorations through a hermeneutic of the risen Christ
In proposing a parallel between the early disciples' initial misrecognition of the resurrected Jesus and contemporary conservative churches' condemnation of Gender Affirmation Surgery, I argue in this article that a hermeneutic of the risen Christ can suggest reasons behind conservative Malaysian churches' transnegative attitudes towards surgical modification and serve as an alternative interpretive lens to remap more affirming theopastoral strat…
Introduction: Coming in and finding ground: Genders, sexualities, and theopastoral imaginations in Southeast Asia
Everyday precarity, oblique hostility and gendered liveability among Malaysian transgender men
Although a gamut of sensational issues affecting transgender communities in Malaysia proliferates in academic scholarship and activism reports, and transgender experiences of tragedy and violence are often amplified in the news media, less attention is given to the everyday forms of aggression and vulnerability that transgender people encounter in seemingly innocuous spaces. Guided by a Constructivist Grounded Theory Methodology, I analyse select…
Journal of gender studies: Sheila Cunnison Prize
Dr. Feona Attwood: Can you tell us something about yourself, how you have come to work as an academic, and how you developed the research you presented in your winning article ‘Everyday precarious
Sociology (21 works) · Gender Studies (18 works) · Philosophy (13 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Marriage and Sexual Relationships (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · Narrative (9 works) · Queer (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Theology (8 works)