The ANU Japan Institute Seminar Series showcases cutting-edge research by leading and emerging scholars based primarily in Australia and Japan. It aims to promote networking among Japan Studies scholars in the two countries and will feature innovative research on the bilateral relationship.
Exploring the transnational spread of Japanese queer media across Southeast Asia: Towards a theory of decolonial 'fantasy work'
Japanese media has long explored themes related to queer sexuality, with the popular cultures known as Boys Love (BL)/yaoi and Girls Love (GL)/yuri representing particularly notable examples. Since the 1990s, both BL and GL have spread across Asia and have been enthusiastically received by dedicated fans, many of whom belong to the LGBTQ+ community. In this lecture, the speaker will present an overview of their work on both the representations of queerness in Japanese media and the impact of these Japanese media in shaping knowledge about sexuality in two Southeast Asian contexts: the Philippines and Thailand. Placing an emphasis on the role Japanese queer media have played in influencing the production of local queer media – whether it be Thailand’s transnationally popular BL dramas or the Philippines’ BL and GL komiks – the speaker will discuss how fantasies of Japan have come to contour queer expression across Southeast Asia.
Drawing upon longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork of LGBTQ+ fans of BL and GL in the Philippines, the seminar will look into how Japanese queer media are transformed into resources for the production of queer emancipatory politics through LGBTQ+ individuals’ transformative fan practices. Focusing on these fans’ broader fantasies of Japan, the speaker suggests that the transnational spread of Japanese queer media does not represent a colonisation of Southeast Asian LGBTQ+ cultures. Rather, they conclude by exploring how the ‘fantasy work’ of Philippine fans reveals the queer, decolonial potentials of Japanese media’s transnational spread, particularly through Southeast Asian fans’ and media producers’ ‘glocalization’ of Japanese BL and GL to their local contexts.
Speaker
Dr Thomas Baudinette is Senior Lecturer in Global Cultures at Macquarie University, Australia. A cultural anthropologist, his research explores the role popular culture plays in shaping knowledge about gender and sexuality across East and Southeast Asia. His first book is Regimes of Desire: Young Gay Men, Media, and Masculinity in Tokyo (University of Michigan Press, 2021). His second book is Boys Love Media in Thailand: Celebrity, Fans, and Transnational Asian Queer Popular Culture (Bloomsbury, 2023).
Together with Katrien Jacobs and Alexandra Hambleton, he edited East Asian Pornographies and Online Porn Cultures (Routledge, 2023). He recently completed the Academy of Korean Studies funded project 'Exploring K-pop Fandom as a Space for LGBT Support in the Asia-Pacific During Pandemic Times' (AKS-2022-R033). Thomas is currently working on his third book, tentatively titled Queer Fantasies of Asia: Japanese and Korean Media Fandom in the Philippines.
Light refreshments provided at 12.50pm AEST.
Contact the ANU Japan Institute Seminar Series Convener: Dr Andrew Levidis at andrew.levidis@anu.edu.au
The ANU Japan Institute Seminar Series is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia-Japan Foundation of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
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