Howard Chiang proposes a new paradigm for doing transgender history in which geopolitics assumes central importance. Defined as the antidote to transphobia, transtopia challenges a minoritarian view of transgender experience and makes room for the variability of transness on a historical continuum.
Focusing on psychiatric medicine in China, this collection delves into the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness throughout early modern and modern periods. It highlights the cultural implications of madness and explores how the medicalization of the mind evolved amid changing political landscapes in Chinese history. The essays provide a nuanced understanding of the intersection between mental health and societal transformations.
Howard Chiang traces the genealogy of sexual knowledge in China from the demise of eunuchism to the emergence of transsexuality, showing its role in the formation of Chinese modernity. Theoretically sophisticated and far- reaching, After Eunuchs is an innovative contribution to the history and philosophy of science and queer and Sinophone studies.