Pitt's Department of Music presents Yun Emily Wang and "Listening Incommensurably: Sounding 'out' as homonationalist double-bind in Toronto’s Queer Taiwanese Diaspora" as part of Visiting Scholar Series, March 31.

The University of Pittsburgh's Department of Music will host Dr. Yun Emily Wang and her talk "Listening Incommensurably: Sounding 'out' as homonationalist double-bind in Toronto’s Queer Taiwanese Diaspora" of Duke University on March 31.

In this paper I analyze two ethnographic moments of sounding “out” among a group of queer Taiwanese immigrants in Toronto by tracking the incommensurables in each instance.

The first case study took place in a private home in 2014, when my interlocutors exchanged stories of navigating racism in North American queer culture and the ways in which Taiwan’s pending legalization of same-sex marriage produced polarizing family dynamics stretching across the Pacific Ocean. This discussion of intersectional politics was soundtracked by an electronic dance music track consisting of an auto-tuned anti-queer Christian sermon that had gone viral in Taiwan a few months prior, and my interlocutors interacted with the track as non-verbal commentaries that complemented the discussion. The second followed Taiwanese Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling in 2017, when my interlocutors marched in Toronto’s annual Pride Parade. They broadcasted Mandopop queer club anthems with amplifiers on a small hand truck and invited parade bystanders to “party along” and celebrate Taiwan, drowning out the other queer Asian groups. In such politically charged moments of collective listening, singing along, and dancing, my interlocutors engaged with multiple sonic publics that participated in what Jasbir K. Puar calls “homonationalism-as-assemblage” (2015), the processes through which nation states claim sovereignty through queer-friendliness at the expense of the racially and economically marginalized.

Investigating the incommensurabilities between Canadian and Taiwanese queer politics, between sounding and listening, between openness toward an emergent Asian Canadian queer futurity and its own foreclosures, ultimately, I demonstrate the necessity of failures and complicity in efforts toward an otherwise world.

The virtual event runs from 4:00 to 5:30 pm, and will be available on Zoom for Pitt students, faculty, and staff, and on Youtube to the rest of the viewing public.