FACULTY APPOINTMENTS
2024-Present | Associate Research Fellow
Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan.
2020-2024 | Assistant Research Fellow
Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan.
2017-2020 | Assistant Professor
Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department, University at Albany, State University of New York, USA.
EDUCATION
2017｜Ph.D., City University of New York, Graduate Center, New York, NY
PhD in Critical Social Psychology, Women's and Gender Studies Certificate
2013｜M.Phil., City University of New York, Graduate Center, New York, NY
En-Route M.Phil & M.A. in Critical Social Psychology
2009｜B.S., University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Bachelor of Science in Psychology, Minor in Women's Studies
PUBLICATIONS
Book
2024 Feeling Asian American: Racial Flexibility between Assimilation and Oppression (winner of the 2018 National Women’s Studies Association’s First Book Prize)
“Asian Americans have become the love-hate subject of the American psyche: at times celebrated as the model minority, at other times hated as foreigners. Wen Liu examines contemporary Asian American identity formation while placing it within a historical and ongoing narrative of racial injury. The flexible racial status of Asian Americans oscillates between oppression by the white majority and offers to assimilate into its ranks. Identity emerges from the tensions produced between those two poles. Liu dismisses the idea of Asian Americans as a coherent racial population. Instead, she examines them as a raced, gendered, classed, and sexualized group producing varying physical and imaginary boundaries of nation, geography, and citizenship. Her analysis reveals repeated norms and acts that capture Asian Americanness as part of a racial imagination that buttresses capitalism, white supremacy, neoliberalism, and the US empire.”
2026 依戀傷痕：亞裔美國人的情感動員與認同。二十張出版。譯者： 蔡耀緯。
許多人對亞裔美國人的印象往往停留在兩種簡單的標籤：「典範少數族裔」，聰明、努力、安靜、成功；「永遠的外人」，無論生在美國多久，依舊不被視為真正的美國人。「亞裔美國人」一詞於一九六○年代民權運動時期出現，創造伊始便帶有政治訴求。換句話說，亞裔主體是在美國帝國擴張、戰爭記憶以及排華史的陰影下，透過集體的「受傷感覺」凝聚而成。藉由反覆回到歷史創傷，亞裔美國人打造認同基礎，而創傷敘事亦帶來團結與能見度。
這種「受傷感覺」不只是個人的心理挫敗，更是一種制度性的種族化產物，決定了亞裔如何在充滿敵意或偏見的社會階序中尋找自己的定位。作者因此提出「種族彈性」的概念來解釋——亞裔美國人的種族身分不是固定的，而是像彈簧一樣在壓迫與接納中來回反覆。當亞裔群體長期被形塑為具備高適應力的「模範少數」，這種彈性雖然讓他們在白人至上的社會結構中獲得某些戰略性的成功，但背後卻隱藏著巨大的代價。為了換取社會承認，亞裔主體往往必須壓抑那些難以言說的「少數者感受」，陷入一種「殘酷樂觀主義」：盲目追求那個永遠無法真正接納他們的美國夢，最終導致心理上的異化與斷裂。
Edited Volumes
BOOK
2022 Reorienting Hong Kong’s Struggle: Leftism, Decoloniality, and Internationalism. Palgrave Macmillan. (edited with J.N. Chien, C. Chung, & E. Tse)
German edition: Neuorientierung des Widerstands in Hongkong
This book brings together writing from activists and scholars that examines leftist and decolonial forms of resistance that have emerged from Hong Kong’s contemporary era of protests. Practices such as labor unionism, police abolition, land justice struggles, and other radical expressions of self-governance may not explicitly operate under the banners of leftism and decoloniality.
Special ISSUE
2025 Feminist and queer critiques of multiple empires: the case of Sinophone Asia. International Feminist Journal of Politics. (Edited with Charlie Yi Zhang & Lin Li).
2024 Feminist and Queer Resistance to Neo-Fascism’s Anti-‘Gender Ideology’ Movements. Journal of Lesbian Studies. (Edited with Laurie Essig, Ella Ben Hagai, Munia Bhaumik)
2020 Feminisms and Decolonizing Psychology. Special issue in Feminisms & Psychology, 30(3). (Edited with I. C. Macleod & S. Bhatia).
2017 Affect and Subjectivity. Special issue in Subjectivity, 10(1). (with A. Lara, C. Ashley, A. Nishida, R. Liebert, & M. Billies)
Journal Papers
(accepted) 〈成為防衛共同體：戰爭風險下草根民防組織與安全感知的興起〉，《科技、醫療與社會》。
2026 Performing War, Anticipating Futures: Affect and Security in Wartime Simulations. Security Dialogue. https://doi.org/10.1093/secdia/xhag007
2026 Seeking Epistemic Justice and Security in Eastern Europe and East Asia. Sociological Review, 74(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/00380261261423857
2026 From Military Anthem to Safeguarding Democracy: ‘Save Your Own Country’ and the Transformation of Sovereignty and Nationalism in Taiwan. Nations and Nationalism. http://doi.org/10.1111/nana.70060 (with Dung-Shiu Yu).
2025 Feminist and Queer Critiques of Multiple Empires: The Case of Sinophone Asia. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 27(4), 753-760.
2025 What Is Left of Queer Anti-Militarism? Queer Fatalism, Sinocentrism, and Taiwanese Sovereignty. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 27(4), 785-807.
2025 Microaggression in the Age of “Anti-Asian Hate”: The Entangled Racial Politics of Asian, Black, and Asian American Studies. Journal of Asian Studies, 84(3): 786-798.
2025 Careful Hope in the 2022 Taiwanese LGBTQ + Community Survey: from Social Changes to Clinical Social Work Services. Clinical Social Work Journal 53, 16–31 (with Chengshi Shiu, Ciwang Teyra, Yuan-Yuan Chan).
2024 Forward: “Feminist and Queer resistance to-Fascism’s anti-‘Gender Ideology’ Movements.” Journal of Lesbian Studies, 28 (3), 373-381 (with Laurie Essig, Ella Ben Hagai, Munia Bhaumik).
2024〈弱情感與「新冷戰」：美中臺地緣政治衝突下的網路迷因與中介情感〉，《中外文學》，第五十三卷，第二期，頁55-98。[Weak Affect and the “New Cold War” Internet Memes and Mediating Affect under Geopolitical Conflicts between the United States, China, and Taiwan. Chung-Wai Literary Quarterly, 53(2), 55-98]
2024 Colorblindness and Race Dismissiveness: Discursive Racism and the Limits of Multicultural Competence. Journal of Social Issues 80, 629-650. (with Tamara R. Buckley and Erica G. Foldy)
2024 The Geopolitics of Queer Archives: Contested Chineseness and queer Sinophone Affiliations between Hong Kong and Taiwan. Sexualities 28(3), 1118-1138. (with Eva Cheuk-Yin Li)
2024 The Mundane Politics of War in Taiwan: Psychological Preparedness, Civil Defense, and Permanent War. Security Dialogue, 5(1), 103-122.
2023 〈置疑霸權儒家主義：去中國中心主義與多元性別主體經驗〉，《本土心理學研究》，第六十期，頁3-46。[Troubling Hegemonic Confucianism: The Problem of Sinocentrism and the Subjectivity of Sinophone Queers. Indigenous Psychological Research in Chinese Societies, 60, 3-46]
2023 〈走向積極「去華性」：本土脈絡中的權力結構與抵殖民心理學的可能〉，《本土心理學研究》，第六十期，頁119-127。[Towards Desinicization: Multiple Power Structures in "Indigenous Psychology" and the Possibility of Decolonizing Psychology. Indigenous Psychological Research in Chinese Societies, 60, 119-127]
2022 Ethno-Racial Paranoia and Affective Cold Warism: Remapping Rival US-PRC Imperial Formations. American Quarterly 74(3): 499-522. (with Charlie Yi Zhang and Casey Lee).
2022 Boundless China and Backward Asians: Hegemonic Confucianism as Epistemological Violence in Queer Psychology. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 56, 491–505. [Special Issue: Contemporary Innovations in Theory: Contributions from China and the Chinese Diaspora]
2022 ‘The Future of Taiwan Studies in the Post-covid World’: Online Series on ‘covid and Governance: Global and Social Solidarity’, 31 July 2020. (with Po-Han Lee, Ya-Wen Yang, Harry Yi-Jui Wu). International Journal of Taiwan Studies, 5(1), 165-180.
2021 Pandemic Paranoia: Toward a Reparative Practice of the Global Psyche. Psychoanalysis, Culture, & Society 24(4), 608-622.
2021〈非西方、亞洲或中美冷戰結構？重置酷兒臺灣的戰(暫)時主體〉，《臺灣文學研究雧刊》，第二十六期【臺灣酷兒文學與文化特輯】，頁3-35。[Non-Western Sexuality, Queer Asia, or Cold War Geopolitics? Repositioning Queer Taiwan in the Temporal Turn. NTU Studies in Taiwan Literature 26, 3-35]
2021 From Independence to Interdependence: Taiwan Independence as Critique, Strategy, and Method toward Decoloniality. American Quarterly 73(2), 371-377.
2020 Internationalism beyond the “Yellow Peril”: on the possibility of transnational Asian American solidarity. Journal of Transnational American Studies, 11(2), 13-16.
2020 On protest, discourse, and the livable life: the role of identity and affect. In Special Issue: Social Change (Rallies, Riots and Revolutions), Current Opinions in Psychology, 35: 132-137. (with S. Opotow).
2020 Feeling down, backward, and machinic: queer theory and the affective turn. In Special Issue: Mapping Affect Studies. Athenea Digital, 20(2), 2321.
2020 Feminisms and decolonizing psychology: possibilities and challenges. Editorial introduction. Feminism & Psychology, 30(3)287-305. (with C. I. Macleod & S. Bhatia)
2019 Narrating Against Assimilation and the Empire: Diasporic Mourning and Queer Asian Melancholia. In Special Issue: Asian Diaspora. WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, 47(1/2).
2018 Complicity and resistance: Asian American body politics in Black Lives Matter. Journal of Asian American Studies, 21(3), 421-451.
2017 Restarting from shameful places: Toward a queer psychology of affect. In Special Issue: Affect & Subjectivity. Subjectivity, 10(1).
2017 Affect and subjectivity. Editorial introduction in special issue: Affect & Subjectivity. Subjectivity, 10(1)., 30-43.(with A. Lara, C. Ashley, A. Nishida, R. Liebert, & M. Billies).
2017 Collective Statement on Taiwan Independence: Building Global Solidarity and Rejecting US Military Empire. American Quarterly, 69(3), 465-468. (with F. Hsu & B. Hioe)
2015 Young Activists, New Movements: Contemporary Chinese Queer Feminism and Transnational Genealogies. In Special Issue: Young Feminists. Feminism & Psychology, 25(1), 11-17. (with A. Huang & J. Ma)
2015 The Embodied Crises of Neoliberal Globalization: The Lives and Narratives of Filipina Migrant Domestic Workers. Women’s Studies International Forum, 50, 80-88.
2015〈酷兒左翼「超英趕美」？「同性戀正典化」的偏執及臺灣同志運動的修復詮釋〉，《應用倫理評論》第58期，頁101-128。[The Queer Paranoia of Homonormativity and Reparative Reading of Taiwanese LGBT Movement. In Special Issue: Same-Sex Marriage. Applied Ethics Review, 58, 101-128.]
Book Chapters
2023 Beyond Critique and Conspiracy: COVID Memes as Reparative Practices in Digital Taiwan. In Hsin-I Cheng and Hsin-i Sydney Yueh (Eds), Resistance in the Era of Nationalisms: Performing Identities in Taiwan and Hong Kong (pp. 31-60) East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.
2022 Homonationalism as Site of Contestation and Transformation: On Queer Subjectivities and Homotransnationalism across Sinophone Societies. In Angeliki Sifaki, C.L. Quinan, Katarina Lončarević (Eds.), Homonationalism, Femonationalism and Ablenationalism Critical Pedagogies Contextualised (pp. 31-47). New York: Routledge. (with C. Y. Zhang)
2022 Decolonizing protest suicide: performing life in Hong Kong. In W. Liu, Chien, JN, Chung, & Tse, E. (Eds.), Reorienting Hong Kong’s Resistance: Leftism, Decoloniality, and Internationalism (pp. 61-71). Singapore: Palgrave Macmillian. (with N. Manzoor)
2020 Feminist theory and methodologies: crossing disciplinary borders. In F. Cheng and D. Halper (Eds.), Cambridge Handbook of the International Psychology of Women (pp. 14-26). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. (with R. Pande & H. Tseng)
2014 “Aggression and violence: causes and correctives.” In M. Deutsch, P. Coleman, and E. Marcus (Eds.), Handbook of Conflict Resolution, Third Edition (pp. 681-707). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (with S. Opotow).
Book and Film Reviews
2025 Sinophone Studies Across Disciplines: A Reader. International Journal of Taiwan Studies.
2024 Island X: An Internationalist Examination of Taiwanese American History During the Cold War. Taiwan Insight. (2024/5/20)
2024 Sexuality and the Rise of China: The Post-1990s Gay Generation in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China. Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, 8(1), 25.
2023 Dreadful Desires: The Uses of Love in Neoliberal China, Charlie Yi Zhang, Duke University Press. Asian Journal of Women's Studies, doi: 10.1080/12259276.2023.2293301
2021 Maid to Queer: Asian Labor Migration and Female Same-Sex Desires. Francisca Yuenki Lai, Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press. 2020. Taiwan Journal of Anthropology, 19(1), 181-184.
2020 Queer Chinese Cultures: Kinship, Migration, and Middle Classes. Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, 4(2), 40.
2020 Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution. Taiwan Journal of Anthropology, 18(1), 158-160.
2019 "White desire and orientalizing sexuality. Review of Amy Sueyoshi's ‘Discriminating sex: White leisure and the making of the American 'Oriental.'" (Illinois, 2018). Journal of American Ethnic History, 38 (3), 108-110. [ink]
2018 Review of Hongwei Bao’s Queer Comrades: Queer Comrades: Gay Identity and Tongzhi Activism in Postsocialist China. Asian Culture.
2018〈評《同志文學史：台灣的發明》：帝國、酷兒時間、置疑同志主體〉，《女學學誌：婦女與性別研究》，第43期，頁127-134。[Review “A Queer Invention in Taiwan: A History of Tongzhi Literature“: Empire, Queer Temporality, Destabilizing Tongzhi Subjectivity. Journal of Women's and Gender Studies, 43, 127-134. ]
Conversations & Encyclopedia Entries
2022 Authoritarianism, Affect, and Queerness: Engaging the Role of Subjectivity, Identity, and Social Movements in an Asian American Context. disclosure: a journal of social theory, 30. (with J. Zhang & L. Bullock). DOI: https://doi.org/10.13023/disclosure.30.06
2014 “Activism.” In Thomas Teo (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology (pp. 20-24). New York, NY: Springer New York Abstract access link. [Full text]. (with K. Sheese)
Public Scholarship & Op-Eds
2026 〈重思剴剴案──社⼯對⺠⼼信任與國家韌性的重要〉《上報》（2026/4/15）(with 劉豐佾)
2026 〈當戰爭不再遙遠：臺灣社會的「民防課」〉《中研院訊科普專欄》（2026/4/2）
2025 〈歷史的不在場證明：「地平線上的低吟」中的感官政治〉《現代美術》，第216期，頁16-25
2025 〈極權治理的噪音與裂縫「2025台北雙年展」中的帝國基礎建設與不可見的戰爭〉《芭樂人類學》（ 2025/12/30）
2025〈反DEI浪潮的盡頭，是否真能「讓美國再次偉大」？〉《報導者X女學會》（2025/7/31）
2025〈跨性別運動的未來，也是女性主義的未來〉《報導者》（2025/2/22）
2024 〈專訪中研院劉文：美國大選和抗中政治的愛恨矛盾下，台灣需要「弱情感聯盟」〉《報導者》（2024/10/29）
2024 〈混合戰之下，台灣人必備的護台心法：《打台灣不如騙台灣》〉《OKAPI》(2024/7/9)
2024〈具象化的情感實驗場：皮克斯《腦筋急轉彎》中的情感心理學與情動觀點反思〉《芭樂人類學》（2024/7/15）(with 李宜澤)
2024〈離散華裔左翼與中國民族主義情結〉《思想》第49期，頁243-252。臺北：聯經。(2024/3/1) (with 丘琦欣)
同時刊於《端傳媒》(2024/3/24)
2024 〈走向緩慢與微小時空的倫理：台北雙年展「小世界」的不可擴縮性〉《芭樂人類學》(2024/1/29)
2023 In the Face of War, the Dangers of Pro-China Rethoric in Taiwan. The Diplomat. (2023/05/01) (with Fang-Yu Chen and Brian Hioe)
2023 Governing by Memes: COVID-19, Conspiracy, and Digital Democracy in Taiwan. Taiwan Insight. (2023/03/27) (with Sydney Yueh)
2023 〈民防作為一場公民運動：將「心防」視為備戰關鍵〉《芭樂人類學》(2023/3/6)
同時刊於《端傳媒》(2023/9/22)
2022〈讀《性的正義》：迎接慾望，相信「慾望皆能改變」是一種批判政治〉《端傳媒》(2022/10/04)
2022 〈亞裔還是啞裔？有著一張亞洲臉孔的美國人與不被重視的種族歧視惡夢〉《故事》(2022/07/08)
2022 From Taiwan to Ukraine: Geopolitical Realignment and Anticolonial Solidarity in a Time of War. Spectre Journal. (2022/05/24) (with Brian Hioe).
2022〈台美教會槍擊案——中美衝突下失語的台灣傷痕，與受限的仇恨框架〉《端傳媒》(2022/05/23)
2021 Against the Politics of Injury: On the Dangers of Asian American Liberal Antiracism. episteme issue 6, position politics.
2021〈停止亞裔仇恨——尋求美國主流支持的無奈控訴下，亞裔正義到底是什麼？〉《端傳媒》（2021/03/25）
2020〈黑人的命與種族資本主義：半世紀以來的美國黑人抗爭〉《芭樂人類學》
同時刊於《中華民國比較文學學會》電子報，第三十四期（2021/1）
2020 Hong Kong’s Future Against the New Cold War. Society & Space.
2020 What is “National Doom”? In Taiwan, It Depends on Whom You Ask. The Nation. (with Brian Hioe).
Please email me if you would like a copy of the full-text articles.
SELECTED FELLOWSHIPS & AWARDS
吳大猷先生紀念獎 Ta-You Wu Memorial Award, National Science and Technology Council, 2025
傑出人才發展基金會「積極爭取國外優秀年輕學者獎助」Foundation for the Advancement of Outstanding Scholarship, Taiwan, 2021-2026
National Women’s Studies Association First Book Prize with the University of Illinois Press 2018
Marilyn J. Gittell Dissertation Fellowship for Publicly Engaged Scholarship 2015-2016.
Koonja Mitchell Memorial Prize for Social Justice Dissertation Research 2015
SELECTED GRANTS
2024-2026 [國科會-優秀年輕學者研究計畫] National Science and Technology Council, Young Scholars’ Research Program, Taiwan
民防與心防:臺灣民間的備戰意識建構 Civil Defense and Psychological Preparedness: Taiwan’s Grassroots Mobilization for War Preparedness.
#NSTC 113 - 2628 - H - 001 - 012 - MY2
2022-2023 [行政院-性別平等處] Executive Yuan, Gender Equity Committee, Taiwan. (co-investigator)
我國多元性別 LGBTI 者生活狀況調查委託研究案 National Survey of Taiwan’s LGBTQ + Community
2021-2024 [科技部] Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan.
歸屬的經濟:海外返鄉移民的國家認同與本體安全感 The Economics of Belonging: Overseas Returnees’ National Identity Making and Ontological Security.
#MOST 110 - 2410 - H - 001 - 097 - MY2
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
Co-Director of Taiwan Feminist Scholars Association 台灣女性學學會第29屆理事 | 2021-2022; 2025-2026
Council member of the Diversity and Equity Committee, Association of Asian Studies | 2023-2026
Co-Chair of North American Asian Feminist Caucus, National Women’s Studies Association | 2020-2023
Vice Chair of Taiwan Feminist Scholars Association 台灣女性學學會第30屆副理事長| 2022-2023
Editorial Board member of Journal of Lesbian Studies | 2023-2024
Editorial Board member of Current Sociology | 2020-2023