“A cool kid”

Hongwei Bao

doi:10.1075/tis.19069.bao

Abstract

Abstract This article traces the historical moment when queer theory first arrived in mainland China in the early 2000s by comparing and contrasting two translated texts in Chinese: Wang Fengzhen’s book Guaiyi Lilun [Peculiar Theory] and Li Yinhe’s book Ku’er Lilun [A Cool Kid Theory]. Juxtaposing the two translators’ positioning and marketing strategies, along with their use of paratexts such as book cover design and translator’s prefaces, this article aims to explain why Ku’er Lilun ended up being a more popular and widely circulated text than Guaiyi Lilun. It also pinpoints the cultural specificities of queer theory’s reception in the postsocialist Chinese context at the beginning of the new millennium. This article hopes to provide critical insights into the politics of translating academic theories transnationally, with a focus on paratextual, extratextual, and contextual factors which work in tandem to shape the reception of these theories in a non-Western context.

Highlights

Queer theory first entered the People’s Republic of China (PRC) at the beginning of the new millennium as a translated intellectual discourse and academic theory, represented by Wang Fengzhen’s edited collection Guaiyi Lilun 怪异理论 and Li Yinhe’s edited collection Ku’er Lilun 酷儿理论, both published in 2000.1 Two decades have passed, and ku’er [queer] has become a buzzword in China’s LGBTQ communities and academic discourses, celebrated by some and criticized by others (Bao 2018; Yi 2018; Tang, Wang and Bao 2020)
Guaiyi Lilun is only known to a small academic readership
The two books on the same topic could not have been treated more differently. Their differing fates lead me to ask: How did queer theory travel to mainland China? What historical, social, and cultural contexts have shaped the Chinese understandings of queer theory? Between Wang’s “peculiar theory” and Li’s “a cool kid theory”, why did Li’s translation end up being

Summary

Introduction

Queer theory first entered the People’s Republic of China (PRC) at the beginning of the new millennium as a translated intellectual discourse and academic theory, represented by Wang Fengzhen’s edited collection Guaiyi Lilun 怪异理论 (literally “peculiar theory”) and Li Yinhe’s edited collection Ku’er Lilun 酷儿理论 (literally “a cool kid theory”), both published in 2000.1 Two decades have passed, and ku’er [queer] has become a buzzword in China’s LGBTQ communities and academic discourses, celebrated by some and criticized by others (Bao 2018; Yi 2018; Tang, Wang and Bao 2020) Terms such as ku’er dianying [queer film], ku’er yishu [queer art], ku’er wenhua [queer culture], and ku’er shenfen [queer identity] have become widely circulated terms in China’s urban LGBTQ communities. Their differing fates lead me to ask: How did queer theory travel to mainland China? What historical, social, and cultural contexts have shaped the Chinese understandings of queer theory? Between Wang’s “peculiar theory” and Li’s “a cool kid theory”, why did Li’s translation end up being

Objectives

Conclusion