Transcultural fan studies with a ‘Queer Asia’ focus in the 2020s

Abstract

This article considers how the landscape of transcultural fandom studies has developed, focusing on its evolution through the lens of queer (Asian) studies over the past two decades. It particularly emphasizes key research locales in the field, such as East Asia and the United States, in both physical and imaginative senses. My scholarly reflection seeks to elucidate significant shifts and emerging strands within the field's theoretical and analytical paradigms concerning the dynamics of Queer Asia. Fundamental to this discussion is how transcultural fandom studies can continue to be attuned to the sociocultural transformations and theoretical advancements occurring globally. Highlighting relevant changes in academic and social worlds and their broader sociocultural ramifications on future research, I advocate for a paradigm shift in which Asia is recognized as the origin—both imaginatively and figuratively—for gender and sexual discourses in comparative analyses of transcultural fandom in the 2020s.