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RESEARCH

Research Areas

  • Sex, Gender, the Body, Race, and Sexuality

  • Modern East/Southeast Asia

  • Asian American Studies (Queer Asian America)

  • Performance Studies

  • Queer Studies

  • Ethnomusicology

My research deals primarily with sex, gender, race, and sexuality in the transpacific, with a particular focus on the queer Asian diaspora, queer nightlife, and sound studies. This work is guided by pleasurable objects of analysis (music festivals, fetish wear, sex[uality]) and their illustration of queer Asian or “Gaysian” lifeworlds/soundscapes in diaspora across the Pacific Rim.

CURRENT PROJECTS

  • Hardening Men: Masculinity, Nationalism, and Leadership in Post Colonial Southeast Asia (Singapore, Malaysia)

    • I am interested in how manhood and masculinity are constructed through military service. Moreover, how is masculinity co opted into being an issue of national security for newly created countries in Southeast Asia?

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  • “You make me feel good, I like that”: North American Music Festivals/Raves,Queer Identity, and Finding Utopia

    • Mainly, I am interested in understanding how gay Asian men (“Gaysians”) find “utopia” through sensory experiences in raves and music festivals. My approach is to consider Sensory Studies as method to understand how music, clothing/costume, and drugs work in tandem with rave culture (PLUR) to create a sense of utopia and belonging in a crowd. 

    • I am mostly focusing my energy on looking at the big North American Electronic Dance Music (EDM) music festivals such as Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC), Dreamstate, Second Sky, and VELD.

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  • Male (Gay) Sex Work, Domestic Servants, and Masculinity in Colonial Southeast Asia 

    • My research here is mostly focused on the “sexual underground” and how people express sexuality in spaces and places where they cannot openly be gay.

    • I am also interested in how men who work as domestic workers (house cleaners, childcare workers, etc.) are effeminized by their colonial masters 

    • This was my undergraduate thesis topic!

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