The History of Se: the epistemology of Nanse and Sexual Modernity in East Asia

Principle Investigator：Tsai Meng-Che, IACS, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University

My mid- and long-term project will investigate the transformation of sexual modernity in East Asia. This project will adopt “sex/gender” study to explore the historical process of imperialism, colonialism, cold war, neoliberalism and globalization in East Asia. I would focus on the historical formation of the epistemology of (Nan)se, and the transformation of the knowledge/power in sexual modernity regimes--they were broken or displaced, but sometimes composed coherently and contradictorily in multiple historical times and spaces--the power of these epistemological models continue to reproduce and operate by the figures of the historical remnants or new wine in old bottles these days. Through researching the historical trajectories of inter-Asian (trans)culturality, the goal of the project is to analyze the (post)colonial effect of Cold War knowledge regime and affect modernity, and to reexamine the emergence and formation of sexual modernity in East Asia.