Kai Tjoon Lim

Thesis title: Postqueer Catalysts: Athwart Dynamisms of the In/Organic

Biography

Background

Kai is a PhD researcher interested in queer theory, the new materialisms, and critical posthumanist discourses. He obtained an Honours (Highest Distinction) for his BA in English and is nominated for the Graduate College Awards (Interdisciplinary Award) for his MA thesis at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. In addition to traditional literary research, he adopts transmedial approaches to queer/ing as a methodology to reflect its insistent transversality and to manoeuvre athwart the restrictive binarisms within identity politics. He has also recently worked on topics related to video games studies, graphic narratives, and film theory in his BA and MA theses. When not conducting his PhD research, Kai can generally be found playing video games and mulling over the ludic aspects of queerness therein.

 

Kai's doctoral research is invested in theorising the hidden geologies of what he terms "postqueer catalysts". Broadly construed, these catalysts are in/organic bodies such as stone, sand, and viruses that dividualise identity becomings. While the political dimensions of queer theory have often favoured the figure of the human as the starting point of analysis, his thesis aims to excavate the in/organic catalysts that continually dis/organise the queer slippages and intermediaries preceding this plurality. By considering the vibrant dynamisms of these in/organic catalysts, alternative modes of queering the transversal boundaries of time, space, and relationalities between different identity markers are made possible beyond the human.

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Currently, Kai is an Asst. Editor in FORUM: Postgraduate Journal of Culture and the Arts. He is also a reviewer for TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly.

In Semester 1, he teaches postgraduate seminars in Multi-Sensory Cultures offered by the Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) on topics related to phenomenology, sense and sensation, and theories of embodiment. He also teaches undergraduate classes in Literary Studies 2A at the School of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures (LLC).

In Semester 2, he is a guest lecturer and tutor for undergraduate seminars in Introduction to Queer Studies at ECA. He also teaches Literary Studies 1B for undergraduate students at LLC.

Qualifications

  • PhD, English Literature, in progress
    • University of Edinburgh
  • MA (by Research), English (2022)
    • Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
  • BA (Honours, Highest Distinction), English (2020)
    • Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Undergraduate teaching

Introduction to Queer Studies (Semester 2)

Literary Studies 1B (Semester 2)

Literary Studies 2A (Semester 1)

Postgraduate teaching

Multi-Sensory Cultures (Semester 1)

Research summary

(Post)Queer theory

New Materialisms 

Posthumanism(s) 

Gender & Sexuality Studies

Conference details

  • Queer Utopias: Decolonizing Utopianism in Contemporary Literary Studies (2021)
    • Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA 2021) 
    • Paper title: “Transversal Movements for a Queer(er) Futurity in Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other”

 

  • !deas Fest Conference (2020)

    • School of Humanities, Nanyang Technological University
    • Paper title: “La Vie en Queer: Queering Sight and Envisioning Liberated Subjectivities”
    • Winner of the Great Prestigious Award for best undergraduate paper

“Queering Sight: Visualising the Transversal Other in Josh Malerman’s Bird Box.” FORUM, vol. 34, no. 1, 2023, pp. 1–17. doi.org/10.2218/forum.1.9153.

 

“Re-membering the Other: Mnemonic Sutures in Hiroshima, Mon Amour.” The Film Dispatch, vol. 7, no. 1, 2023, pp. 38-45.

 

“Queering Death: Resistance and Futurity in Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.” Moving Worlds: A Journal of Transcultural Writings, vol. 20, no. 2, 2021, pp. 50–63.

  • Professional Contribution Award (2021)
    • School of Humanities, Nanyang Technological University
  • Dean’s List (2017-2020)
    • Nanyang Technological University
  • NTU Research Scholarship (2020)
    • Nanyang Technological University
  • Great Prestigious Award for best undergraduate paper (2020)
    • !deas Fest Conference
  • President Research Scholar Award (Distinction) (2018)
    • Research title: “Intersectional Hysterias in Alice: Madness Returns”
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