The Danmei Culture in Chinese Media and Society Male-Male Romance, Resistance and Representation

Contents

1-      Introduction

2-      Chapter 1 - A Genealogical History of Danmei Literature in China

3-      Chapter 2 - Stylization of Danmei: Queer Hybridity and the Politics of the Lyrical and the Epic

4-      Chapter 3 - An Intimatopic Space of Their Own: Readers, Desires, and Distinctions of the Danmei Community

5-      Chapter 4 - Danmei-Adapted Web Dramas: Adaptation, Fandom, and the Politics of Transmedia Survival

6-      Chapter 5 - Danmei Audio Dramas: Prosumer Transmediation and Dispossession-Repossession Dynamics

7-      Chapter 6 - Danmei Manga and Animation: Feminized Masculinities and Paradoxical Queer Normativity

8-      Conclusion - Danmei’s Aftermath Moving Beyond China

Biography

Tingting Hu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communication at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, UK. Her research interest lies in digital intimacy and media technology, Asian popular culture and transmedia practices, and human-machine interaction, particularly human-to-virtual-human relationships. 

Liang Ge is a Lecturer of Sociology at the University of Manchester, UK. Liang's work lies in the intersection of digital media and technologies, digital methods, gender, sexuality, youth, and East and Southeast Asian popular cultures and creative industries. 

"This meticulously researched book accomplishes the exciting task of taking us beyond the internet texts of China’s male-male danmei fiction to understand the far less visible media ecology behind them, analysing the complex dynamics of booming popularity and tactical responses to growing censorship that have made danmei a resilient counterpublic." - Chris Berry, King’s College London

 

"By zeroing in on danmei, or male-male romantic and erotic content, Tingting Hu and Liang Ge open up the discussion of commercial compromise and government censorship in contemporary China and beyond. The heterogeneity of danmei, its ambivalence and the interpretive labor that it takes to carve out spaces of expression against a repressive regime are not flaws, but rather features of how this content continues to function as a counterpublic with profound cultural significance. In a “fractured transmedia system,” the reparative work of queer interpretation falls on fans playing a “cat-and-mouse game.” As danmei spreads around the world, visibility brings new challenges and opportunities." - Patrick W. Galbraith, Senshu University