The Public Dimension of Homosexual(S) Dwelling in the Sinosphere: Parks in Pai Hsien-Yung’s Crystal Boys And Mu Cao’s Poems
Abstract
The experience of the public dimension of dwelling varies considerably according to the different positions of individuals in the social space in which it takes place. This essay is interested in investigating how literature, as a form of social critique and analysis, can explore this side of the public dimension of dwelling, focusing on the representation of parks as places of homosexual dwelling in the works of Pai Hsien-yung and Mu Cao. After examining the implications of social space for the dynamics of dwelling in the city, with a focus on unequal relations of class and sexuality, the essay maintains the focus on space by discussing the role of literature as a representational space, before moving on to a close reading of the texts under consideration in order to analyze how parks are approached in terms of dwelling for stigmatized homosexual men and how their public dimension is questioned and reassessed. The essay concludes that the experience of the public dimension of dwelling is inseparable from the modalities of its interaction with the larger social space of which it is a part.
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