Queering Lyrical Tradition: Problematize Methodologies of Tongzhi Literature in Crystal Boys

• Main Authors: Sheng Chiang, 江昇
• Other Authors: Chia-ling Mei
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/2g4b68

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 中國文學研究所 === 106 === Studies of Tongzhi (同志, which generally refers to queers in Taiwan’s social context) literature in Taiwan could be traced back to the introduction of queer theories from Western academia in the mid-1990s. The recent scholarship in this discipline has endeavored to provincialize these Western queer theories, as a way to not only theorize Taiwan’s queer cultures, but also transcend epistemological ruptures between Western and Taiwan’s historical conditions. Situating itself in such an intellectual project, this thesis problematizes current research methodologies in Tongzhi literature by rereading Pai Hsien-yung’s Crystal Boys as an embodiment of queer lyrical tradition. In so doing, I argue that, in order to formulate a methodology of Tongzhi literature that intersects with local sexualities, this text should be rendered as a nodal point that articulates Western gender studies and contemporary Taiwan’s literary discourses. As a novel that has exerted great influence on Taiwan’s Tongzhi literature and culture, Crystal Boys has constructed how Taiwan’s queer subject has been recognized and imagined in the public sphere, along with its following creative adaptations, critical reviews, and academic receptions. Therefore, the proposed methodology of interpreting Crystal Boys in this thesis, on the one hand, allows contemporary researchers to perform a more nuanced textual analysis, and demonstrates the potential of engaging with gender politics for the text’s social reference to Taiwan’s local sexual context, on the other. This thesis suggests that the practice of queer writing that Pai deploys in Crystal Boys is actually affected by Qu Yuan’s lyrics such as “Li Sao,” which reveals the possibility of articulating lyrical tradition and Western queer studies in contemporary Taiwan. As an intellectual agenda of theorization, this thesis aims to make critical contributions through queering lyrical tradition, and further gesture contemporary Chinese queer literature towards an alternative direction different from that of its Western counterpart.