Researcher-in-Residence: Xiang Zairong - Para Site

Menu Xiang Zairong | 向在榮 Xiang Zairong is research fellow of the DFG Research Training Group “Minor Cosmopolitanisms” at Potsdam University. His first book Queer Ancient Ways: A Decolonial Exploration (2018, punctum books) advocates a profound unlearning of colonial/modern categories as a pathway to the discovery of new forms and theories of queerness in the most ancient of sources, namely Babylonian Enuma Elish and Nahua creation myths. He holds a cotutelle Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen (Germany) and Université de Perpignan Via Domitia (France) with the Erasmus Mundus Joint Doctorate: Cultural Studies in Literary Interzones. From 2014 – 2016, he was Research Fellow at the ICI-Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry. His research intersects feminisms and queer theories, literary and visual studies, philosophical and religious inquiries in their decolonial variants in Spanish, English, Chinese, French, and Nahuatl. His publications have appeared in scholarly, artistic and journalistic milieu on topics such as camp, feminist theology, the darkroom, (de)coloniality, translation, Nahuatl, photography, Pedro Almodóvar, masculinity, and the toilet. He curated the “minor cosmopolitan weekend” at the HKW Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin (December 2018). Recently he has co-edited the special issue “Hyperimage” for New Arts: Journal of National Academy of Art (vol.32, 2018); and a special issue at GLQ – A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, “The Ontology of the Couple” (vol.25 no.2, 2019). He is working on two projects, respectively dealing with the concepts of “transdualism” and “counterfeit” which will result in two monographs and an exhibition. He frequently speaks at different artistic and academic venues. Aug 3, 2019 ∙ 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm Book Launch of Queer Ancient Ways: A Decolonial Exploration by Xiang Zairong