This is an in-person event for UofG Staff and Students Only.  A valid UofG Staff or Student email address is required to book your ticket.  

Abstract: Based on long-term ethnographic research with hijras, the emblematic figure of South Asian sexual and gender difference, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, this talk proposes the hijra as a counter-cultural formation that embodies not only a direct contrast to hegemonic patterns of masculinity but also as an alternative subculture offering the possibility of varied forms of erotic pleasures and practices otherwise forbidden in mainstream society. While most studies view hijras as an asexual, emasculated, third sex/gender, this talk calls into question the phallocentric logic that obscures alternative sites and sources of bodily power and pleasure, emphasizing how hijras craft their own subject position.

Brief bio: Adnan Hossain is the author of Beyond emasculation: Pleasure and power in the making of hijra in Dhaka, Bangladesh (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and co-author of Badhai: Hijra-Khwaja Sira-Trans performance across borders in South Asia (Methuen drama 2023). He was an assistant professor of gender studies and critical theory at Utrecht University before taking up a lectureship in sociology at the university of Glasgow  in 2024.