Creative City Singapore and the Illiberal Pragmatics of Sexuality
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Friday, April 11
7pm
Room 1420, Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings St.
Free.
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Recent anti-gay persecutions in Russia and Uganda have turned the world’s attention to the plight of LGBTs living in countries where homosexuality continues to be illegal. Singapore is amongst these remaining few countries that retains its draconian anti-sodomy laws. However, Singapore is also celebrated globally as one of the new exciting cities of gay Asia.
In this lecture, Professor Yue examines this paradoxical phenomenon, where homosexuality remains criminalized yet is at the same time promoted through a cultural liberalization brought about by the country’s transition to a creative economy.
Surveying examples in film, theatre, nighttime economy and new media, she introduces new queer spaces and practices that are produced in and through a milieu she calls “the illiberal pragmatics of sexuality.” Key to this paradox and central to the city’s creative futures is the question of sustainability.
How can creative industries better harness resource and build local capacity in such a small city and in a way that is sustainable? How can LGBT communities continue to carve out queer spaces of survival in a country that persists to actively prosecute homosexuality?
