36.2478, Books: Queer Correctives: Pak (2025)

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-2478. Sat Aug 23 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.2478, Books: Queer Correctives: Pak (2025)

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Date: 20-Aug-2025
From: Lucy Trotter [lucy.trotter at bloomsbury.com]
Subject: Queer Correctives: Pak (2025)


Title: Queer Correctives
Subtitle: Discursive Neo-homophobia, Sexuality and Christianity in
Singapore
Publication Year: 2025

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
           http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/
Book URL: https://www.bloomsbury.com/queer-correctives-9781350454149/

Author(s): Vincent Pak

Hardback, 9781350454149, £95.00

Abstract:

Queer Correctives explores Christian discourses of sex and sexuality
in Singapore to argue that metanoia, the theological concept of
spiritual transformation, can be read as a form of neo-homophobia that
coaxes change in the queer individual.
In Singapore, Christian discourses of sex and sexuality have
materialised in the form of testimonials that detail the pain and
suffering of homosexuality, and how Christianity has been a salve for
the tribulations experienced by the storytellers. This book freshly
engages with Michel Foucault's posthumous and final volume of The
History of Sexuality by revitalising his work on biblical metanoia to
understand it as a form of neo-homophobia. Drawing on Foucauldian
critical theory and approaches in discourse studies, it shows how
language is at the centre of this particular iteration of
neo-homophobia, one that no longer finds value in overt expressions of
hate and disdain for those with non-normative sexualities, but relies
extensively on seemingly neutral calls for change and transformation
in personal lives.
Queer Correctives takes Singapore as a case study to examine
neo-homophobic phenomena, but its themes of change and transformation
embedded in discourse will be relevant for scholars interested in
contemporary iterations of Foucault's concepts of discipline and
technologies of the self. Together with interview data from religious
sexual minorities in Singapore, it captures a burgeoning form of
homophobic discursive practices that eludes mainstream criticism to
harm through change and transformation.

Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics
                     Discourse Analysis
                     General Linguistics
                     Sociolinguistics




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