Please join the Center for Gender and Sexuality as we welcome Dr. Yidong (Steven) Wang, Assistant Professor at Lawrence Technological University. His research and teaching intersect with media ecology, digital storytelling, public humanities, and queer theory. 

For this talk Dr. Wang will share material from a current project exploring how LGBTQ communities in different cultural contexts navigate emergent media spaces, sustain communication networks, and discourse on identity, well-being, and intimacy. While Metropolises like New York City and San Francisco have become the cultural symbols of queer liberation, the vast rural land surrounding the cities and between the coasts is deemed as the geographical “closet” blocking queer visibility. This talk showcases queer storytelling in heartland states like Kansas, where queer people navigate a set of discursive and material parameters for their identity different than the metronormative "out and proud" narrative.