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.
The collection delves into psychiatric medicine in China, analyzing the diagnosis, treatment, and cultural implications of mental illness from early modern to modern periods. It explores the medicalization of the mind within various political contexts, highlighting the complexities and evolving perspectives on madness throughout Chinese history.
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.