ABSTRACT
As a writer, a scholar and an avid researcher, I love mobility, adventures and exploring people from all walks of life. I always wonder how I would be able to complete the monograph if I just sit in an office facing a computer. Mobility has opened many windows and doors. From December 2 to 7, 2016, as a postdoctoral research fellow affiliated with University of Toronto in Canada, I was invited to deliver guest lectures in China on gender and sexuality as intersected with religions, politics, performance studies, cultural studies, Chinese popular media, film and theatre. I was invited to Peking University, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing Normal University and Jinling Women’s College, affiliated with Nanjing Normal University. I was eager to communicate with faculty members there and was informed that none of these universities offered degree programs in gender studies. Faculty members and students, however, showed great interest in my lectures. Despite these people’s tremendous interest, I also encountered a number of faculty members there who did not seem to take gender studies seriously, believing that gender issues were “non-issues.”
