Petrus Liu
Biographic Data
| ID | 3742671 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Petrus Liu |
| GIVEN NAMES | Petrus |
| FAMILY NAME | Liu |
| SIGNATURE | LIU P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Boston University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 41 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 18 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Queer Unintelligibility in China
Epistemologies from the global south
Homonormativity's Racial Capitalism
This essay argues that racial capitalism in East Asia requires and reproduces a hierarchical reading of gender-nonconforming bodies and desires, while the rise of a homonormative discourse finds expression in racialized violence against Chinese-identified subjects. These entanglements preclude an analysis of Taiwan's geostrategic role in a US-led regime of capital accumulation and dispossession. Shifting the conversation from a celebratory view o…
The Specter of Materialism
In recent years, queer theory appears to have made a materialist turn away from questions of representation and performativity to those of dispossession, precarity, and the differential distribution of life chances. Despite this shift, queer theory finds itself constantly reabsorbed into the liberal project of diversity management. This theoretical and political weakness, Petrus Liu argues, stems from an incomplete understanding of capitalism’s c…
Thinking Gender in the Age of the Beijing Consensus
Feminist Studies 47, no. 2. © 2021 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 341 Petrus Liu Thinking Gender in the Age of the Beijing Consensus Originally formulated to dispute biologically deterministic explanations of women’s subordination, the analytical distinction between sex and gender has developed in unexpected ways in transitions from one language to another. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from John Money’s sexological writings to Simone de Beauvoi…
Queer Theory and the Specter of Materialism
This article argues that the development of queer theory as a field has been critically shaped by a desire to dissociate the studies of gender and sexuality from material concerns. Though what is meant by “the material” varies wildly from context to context, queer critiques of materialism have produced an entrenched impression of the incommensurability between queer theory and Marxism. Tracing the varied ways in which the notion of the material h…
Liberal Arts for Asians
This critical commentary discusses Yale-NUS College, a recently established liberal arts college in Singapore enabled by a controversial partnership between Yale University and the National University of Singapore. The Yale–NUS collaboration marks a shift in the role of educational institutions in Singapore's neoliberal economy and one that contends with the legacy of Singapore's earlier discourse of ‘Asian values’. The essay analyses the curricu…
Queer Marxism in Two Chinas
Stateless Subjects
Known in the West primarily through poorly subtitled films, Chinese martial arts fiction is one of the most iconic and yet the most understudied form of modern sinophone creativity. Current scholarship on the subject is characterized by three central assumptions against which this book argues: first, that martial arts fiction is the representation of a bodily spectacle that historically originated in Hong Kong cinema; second, that the genre came …
A New Look at Queer Temporality
Book Review| June 01 2012 A New Look at Queer Temporality Backward Glances: Contemporary Chinese Cultures and the Female Homoerotic ImaginaryMartin, Fran Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010. xi + 290 pp. Petrus Liu Petrus Liu Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google GLQ (2012) 18 (2-3): 413–415. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-1472980 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Permissions Search Site Ci…
Queer Human Rights in and against China
This essay argues that the figure of the human in Marx is grounded neither in the “essence of man” nor in the metahistorical movement of capital. Instead, the human in Marx offers a moral standpoint based on the equality of human time. This perspective, I argue, is indispensable for our understanding of the historical phenomenon of queer human rights discourse in and against China. I analyze this discourse as the political instrument that allows …
The concept of ‘Asia’ in modern China
In 2007, we held a conference on ‘conditions of knowledge’ for the Inter‐Asia Cultural Studies annual symposium at Shanghai University. It was the largest Inter‐Asia Cultural Studies event in Shang
An Interview with Shi Tou
In this interview, Shi Tou recounts her experience as a queer artist and activist in Beijing. She explains her view of the relationship between queer politics and art, how Chinese critics have received her works, and how globalization has shaped her art
Beyond the Strai(gh)ts
In the introduction to the special issue, the guest editors examine the key issues in the current dialogue on Chinese politics and transnational queer formations. The editors explain the origins of the special volume in a transnational queer conference, emphasizing that the volume is not merely a scholarly reflection on the changing meanings of transnational Chinese queer politics, but the result of an effort to build such transnational connectio…
Why Does Queer Theory Need China
This essay resists a common scholarly tendency to treat "queer theory" and "Chinese political economy" as analytically separate issues by arguing that the emergence of new sexual positions and discourses has transnational and material origins. Long before the "linguistic" or "poststructuralist" turn, the historical transformation of the political signifier of "China" already provided an occasion for a critical theory of the subject for queer Chin…
Cinema and history
Hou Hsiao‐Hsien was invited to Singapore to talk about himself. In the speech, he focused on talking about his family background, his childhood memories, life experiences and how these experiences affected his life, and also how he made his films. Furthermore, as Taiwan had gone through many drastic political and economic changes, especially after the lifting of Martial Law, these conditions influenced Hou's life and his films, too. That is, Hou'…
Queer Marxism in Taiwan
This paper refutes the dominant assumption that Taiwan, unlike Mainland China, has developed a greater degree of tolerance for non‐normative sexual expressions as a result of its democratization. Recent legal and cultural changes indicate that Taiwan’s democratization consists of tendencies and repressive countertendencies. At the same time, this contradictory development has uniquely enabled a body of indigenous Marxist writings that mobilizes d…
What the ‘Third World’ means to me
This essay offers an experience of how the author comes to understand the terms ‘Third World’ in a specific social, historical, and political context in Taiwan. For the author, his deepest understandings of the ‘Third World’ did not come from theoretical readings, but from several concrete personal experiences
Why Does Queer Theory Need China
This essay resists a common scholarly tendency to treat "queer theory" and "Chinese political economy" as analytically separate issues by arguing that the emergence of new sexual positions and discourses has transnational and material origins. Long before the "linguistic" or "poststructuralist" turn, the historical transformation of the political signifier of "China" already provided an occasion for a critical theory of the subject for queer Chin…
Beyond the Strai(gh)ts
In the introduction to the special issue, the guest editors examine the key issues in the current dialogue on Chinese politics and transnational queer formations. The editors explain the origins of the special volume in a transnational queer conference, emphasizing that the volume is not merely a scholarly reflection on the changing meanings of transnational Chinese queer politics, but the result of an effort to build such transnational connectio…
Queer Human Rights in and against China
This essay argues that the figure of the human in Marx is grounded neither in the “essence of man” nor in the metahistorical movement of capital. Instead, the human in Marx offers a moral standpoint based on the equality of human time. This perspective, I argue, is indispensable for our understanding of the historical phenomenon of queer human rights discourse in and against China. I analyze this discourse as the political instrument that allows …
Homonormativity's Racial Capitalism
This essay argues that racial capitalism in East Asia requires and reproduces a hierarchical reading of gender-nonconforming bodies and desires, while the rise of a homonormative discourse finds expression in racialized violence against Chinese-identified subjects. These entanglements preclude an analysis of Taiwan's geostrategic role in a US-led regime of capital accumulation and dispossession. Shifting the conversation from a celebratory view o…
The concept of ‘Asia’ in modern China
In 2007, we held a conference on ‘conditions of knowledge’ for the Inter‐Asia Cultural Studies annual symposium at Shanghai University. It was the largest Inter‐Asia Cultural Studies event in Shang
Queer Marxism in Taiwan
This paper refutes the dominant assumption that Taiwan, unlike Mainland China, has developed a greater degree of tolerance for non‐normative sexual expressions as a result of its democratization. Recent legal and cultural changes indicate that Taiwan’s democratization consists of tendencies and repressive countertendencies. At the same time, this contradictory development has uniquely enabled a body of indigenous Marxist writings that mobilizes d…
What the ‘Third World’ means to me
This essay offers an experience of how the author comes to understand the terms ‘Third World’ in a specific social, historical, and political context in Taiwan. For the author, his deepest understandings of the ‘Third World’ did not come from theoretical readings, but from several concrete personal experiences
What the ‘Third World’ means to me
This essay offers an experience of how the author comes to understand the terms ‘Third World’ in a specific social, historical, and political context in Taiwan. For the author, his deepest understandings of the ‘Third World’ did not come from theoretical readings, but from several concrete personal experiences
Queer Marxism in Taiwan
This paper refutes the dominant assumption that Taiwan, unlike Mainland China, has developed a greater degree of tolerance for non‐normative sexual expressions as a result of its democratization. Recent legal and cultural changes indicate that Taiwan’s democratization consists of tendencies and repressive countertendencies. At the same time, this contradictory development has uniquely enabled a body of indigenous Marxist writings that mobilizes d…
Cinema and history
Hou Hsiao‐Hsien was invited to Singapore to talk about himself. In the speech, he focused on talking about his family background, his childhood memories, life experiences and how these experiences affected his life, and also how he made his films. Furthermore, as Taiwan had gone through many drastic political and economic changes, especially after the lifting of Martial Law, these conditions influenced Hou's life and his films, too. That is, Hou'…
The concept of ‘Asia’ in modern China
In 2007, we held a conference on ‘conditions of knowledge’ for the Inter‐Asia Cultural Studies annual symposium at Shanghai University. It was the largest Inter‐Asia Cultural Studies event in Shang
An Interview with Shi Tou
In this interview, Shi Tou recounts her experience as a queer artist and activist in Beijing. She explains her view of the relationship between queer politics and art, how Chinese critics have received her works, and how globalization has shaped her art
Beyond the Strai(gh)ts
In the introduction to the special issue, the guest editors examine the key issues in the current dialogue on Chinese politics and transnational queer formations. The editors explain the origins of the special volume in a transnational queer conference, emphasizing that the volume is not merely a scholarly reflection on the changing meanings of transnational Chinese queer politics, but the result of an effort to build such transnational connectio…
Why Does Queer Theory Need China
This essay resists a common scholarly tendency to treat "queer theory" and "Chinese political economy" as analytically separate issues by arguing that the emergence of new sexual positions and discourses has transnational and material origins. Long before the "linguistic" or "poststructuralist" turn, the historical transformation of the political signifier of "China" already provided an occasion for a critical theory of the subject for queer Chin…
Stateless Subjects
Known in the West primarily through poorly subtitled films, Chinese martial arts fiction is one of the most iconic and yet the most understudied form of modern sinophone creativity. Current scholarship on the subject is characterized by three central assumptions against which this book argues: first, that martial arts fiction is the representation of a bodily spectacle that historically originated in Hong Kong cinema; second, that the genre came …
A New Look at Queer Temporality
Book Review| June 01 2012 A New Look at Queer Temporality Backward Glances: Contemporary Chinese Cultures and the Female Homoerotic ImaginaryMartin, Fran Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010. xi + 290 pp. Petrus Liu Petrus Liu Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google GLQ (2012) 18 (2-3): 413–415. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-1472980 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Permissions Search Site Ci…
Queer Human Rights in and against China
This essay argues that the figure of the human in Marx is grounded neither in the “essence of man” nor in the metahistorical movement of capital. Instead, the human in Marx offers a moral standpoint based on the equality of human time. This perspective, I argue, is indispensable for our understanding of the historical phenomenon of queer human rights discourse in and against China. I analyze this discourse as the political instrument that allows …
Queer Marxism in Two Chinas
Liberal Arts for Asians
This critical commentary discusses Yale-NUS College, a recently established liberal arts college in Singapore enabled by a controversial partnership between Yale University and the National University of Singapore. The Yale–NUS collaboration marks a shift in the role of educational institutions in Singapore's neoliberal economy and one that contends with the legacy of Singapore's earlier discourse of ‘Asian values’. The essay analyses the curricu…
Queer Theory and the Specter of Materialism
This article argues that the development of queer theory as a field has been critically shaped by a desire to dissociate the studies of gender and sexuality from material concerns. Though what is meant by “the material” varies wildly from context to context, queer critiques of materialism have produced an entrenched impression of the incommensurability between queer theory and Marxism. Tracing the varied ways in which the notion of the material h…
Thinking Gender in the Age of the Beijing Consensus
Feminist Studies 47, no. 2. © 2021 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 341 Petrus Liu Thinking Gender in the Age of the Beijing Consensus Originally formulated to dispute biologically deterministic explanations of women’s subordination, the analytical distinction between sex and gender has developed in unexpected ways in transitions from one language to another. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from John Money’s sexological writings to Simone de Beauvoi…
The Specter of Materialism
In recent years, queer theory appears to have made a materialist turn away from questions of representation and performativity to those of dispossession, precarity, and the differential distribution of life chances. Despite this shift, queer theory finds itself constantly reabsorbed into the liberal project of diversity management. This theoretical and political weakness, Petrus Liu argues, stems from an incomplete understanding of capitalism’s c…
Epistemologies from the global south
Homonormativity's Racial Capitalism
This essay argues that racial capitalism in East Asia requires and reproduces a hierarchical reading of gender-nonconforming bodies and desires, while the rise of a homonormative discourse finds expression in racialized violence against Chinese-identified subjects. These entanglements preclude an analysis of Taiwan's geostrategic role in a US-led regime of capital accumulation and dispossession. Shifting the conversation from a celebratory view o…
Queer Unintelligibility in China
Sociology (14 works) · Gender Studies (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · Queer (9 works) · Japanese History and Culture (8 works) · Law (8 works) · History (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Art (5 works)