Profits of Queerness

Media, Biomedicine, and Citizenship in Authoritarian South Korea, 19501980
This groundbreaking, interdisciplinary study reassesses South Koreas tumultuous era of authoritarian development (19501980) through previously obscured yet illuminating histories of queernessdefined as gender variance, atypical anatomies, and same-sex sexuality, among other nonnormative expressions. Instead of primarily viewing these histories through minoritarian or liberal lenses, Todd A. Henry adopts universalizing and provincializing approaches to examine how societal conformity to dimorphic expectations of gender, sex, and sexuality was foundational to the operation of militarized capitalism in this postcolonial and still-divided nation, thus revealing how biopolitical assessments of citizenship produced rigid boundaries and hierarchized valuations of human life. As such, he urges researchers of Korean Studies to pursue more fully embodied methodologies, also enc