Title

On the Margins of “Canon” and “Humanism” The Brave New World of Queer Science Fiction in Taiwan 1994

Author

Jen-peng Liu

Genre

Article  

Pages

167-202

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Language

Chinese

Key words

Queer science fiction, Hung Ling, Zhang Qi-jiang, Big Sister Is Watching You, Memory’s story, Ji Da-wei, In The Bottom of His Eye, The Palm of Your Hand, A Red Rose Is about to Bloom, cyborgs, transgender, postgender, posthuman

Abstract

     The general understanding of Taiwan’s recent developments in gender issues tends to locate Important events in women’s and homosexual movements or in academic discourses. This perspective, however obscures the many other genres in which gender issues are made meaningful. For example, in 1994 three of the recipients of an important science fiction award were Zhang Qi-jiang for “Big Sister Is Watching You”, Hong Ling for “Memory’s Stpry” and Ji Da-wei for “ In The Botton of His Eye, The Palm of Your Hand. A Red Rose Is about to Bloom.” These very different works all use the genre of science fiction to represent gender and sexuality in unconventional ways that cannot be accounted for by current academic and feminist discourses. These novels are set in the contemporary world of informatics, bio-technology and globalization. This is the world of science fiction , yet it is also a new reality in which issues of gender and post-gender take on more complexity and significance.

     This essay analyzes the politics of representing postmodern bodies in these three. It does this by examining the extent to which these novels resist the encompassing strategies of orthodox and mainstream gender discourses and how, in the midst of globalization, roaming into different fields can become the survival strategy of cyborgs.