ABSTRACT
This chapter interrogates the impact of and resistance to neoliberalism in Chinese queer culture via a discussion of the Chinese queer poet Mu Cao and his work. Adopting a cultural studies approach to literature, this chapter examines the social practice of literary production and dissemination through the author’s participant observation of a literary event in China, together with a textual analysis of Mu Cao’s poems. In doing so, this chapter unravels the complex relationship between neoliberalism, queer subject formation, and poetry production in contemporary China. It also interrogates the urban and middle class bias of queer subject formation by focusing on queer lives from rural, migrant and working class backgrounds.
