J. Daniel Elam is an assistant professor in comparative literature at the University of Hong Kong. He works on South Asian and African anti-colonialism, human rights, and the ongoing HIV/AIDS crisis. His forthcoming book is World Literature for the Wretched of the Earth (Fordham University Press, 2020).
J. Daniel Elam
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Writing on Public Books
Hong Kong: “When We Burn You Will Burn With Us”
The most telling chant of the 2019 Hong Kong protests is “Liberate Hong Kong, the revolution of our times” (光復香港 時代革命), not because it offers a vision …
“You Could Have Changed Everything”
One may as well begin with George Merrill’s touch to E. M. Forster’s backside (“gently, and just above the buttocks,” Forster recalls). It was 1913 …
The World of Gay World Lit
Contemporary gay life is characterized by a curious paradox: visibility and acceptance have made life better for many—especially but not only for white gay men—but at the cost of community and identity. Gay visibility, with its attendant politics of respectability, has occurred at the expense of the gay bar, the bathhouse, the piano bar, and […]
