ABSTRACT
To invoke the terms “Sinophone” and “queer” in one and the same text, indeed to turn the connection of both concepts into the programmatic node of an entire collection of essays, presumes their implicit relationship. It implies that both terms are comparable, or, even, that they share common ground and speak to similar theoretical and political agendas. And yet, in order to activate the full potential of both “Sinophonicity” and “queerness,” namely to destabilize essentialist definitions of sexual and cultural identity and their concomitant norms, we have to question the possibilities and challenges of bringing both terms into close conceptual proximity first. What does it mean to couple “Sinophonicity” and “queerness?” Or, for that matter, since order and sequence matter, “queerness” and “Sinophonicity?” What can the “Sinophone” add to “queerness?” What “queerness” to “Sinophonicity?”
