Ying-Chao Kao, Ph.D.

Ying-Chao Kao, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
yckao@vcu.edu
Founders Hall Room 214

Education

2018 Ph.D. in Sociology, Rutgers University

Dissertation: Organizing Transnational Moral Conservatism: How U.S. Christian and Taiwanese “Pro-Family” Movements Converge, Diverge, and Collide

2015 Certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies, Rutgers University

2014 M.A. in Sociology, Rutgers University

2006 M.A. in Sociology, National Taiwan University

Master’s thesis: Doing Soldier as a Male Ritual: A Study of the Service Process of Conscripted Soldiers’ Masculinities in Taiwan (2000–2006)

Teaching Areas

Sociology of Sexualities, Sex and Gender, Masculinities, LGBTQIA+ Studies, Religion, Global Inequalities, Contemporary Sociological Theory

Research Interests

Sociology of Gender and Sexualities, Religion, Social Inequalities, Global and Transnational Sociology, Asian Studies, Mixed-Methods Research

Biography

Ying-Chao Kao, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Rutgers University in 2018. His research interests include sexualities, gender and masculinities, global religions, and inequalities. His current research tracks the global flows of Christian conservative activism, exploring how Taiwanese and American pro-family organizations have shaped and mobilized the global structures to oppose the sexual citizenship of the tongzhi (LGBTQI+) people. The ongoing globalized oppositional moral movements against marriage equality and “tongzhi education” are particularly examined in the contexts of neo-liberalism, geopolitics, and hetero-hegemony. Bridging the sociological research on religion, sexualities, and transnationalism, Kao’s analysis relates sexual politics and the resurgence of global Christianity to reveal the transnational networks of social conservatism and critically examine the changes in global inequalities. 

Professor Kao has published his work in the journals Contexts, Sexuality Research in China (in English), and Gender Equity Education Quarterly (in Chinese). His research on military masculinity was published in East Asian Men: Masculinity, Sexuality, and Desire (Palgrave, 2017) and Masculinities in a Global Era (Springer, 2013 and co-authored with H-D Bih). His traditional Chinese translation of Laud Humphreys’ Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places (Socio, 2016) won the Editorship Award at the Taipei International Book Exhibition in 2017.

To learn more, please visit his professional academia.edu page.

Articles

English

Kao, Ying-Chao. 2017. “Weapons of the Weak Soldiers: Military Masculinity and Embodied Resistance in Taiwanese Conscription.” Pp. 199–218 in East Asian Men: Masculinity, Sexuality and Desire, edited by X. Lin, C. Haywood and M. Mac an Ghaill. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. 

Kao, Ying-Chao. 2013. “The Rise of BDSM (Sub)culture and Its (Dis)contents: A Literature Review.” Sexuality Research in China 34-2:160–80. 

Kao, Ying-Chao and Herng-Dar Bih. 2013. “Masculinity in Ambiguity: Constructing Taiwanese Masculine Identities between Great Powers.” Pp. 175–91 in Masculinities in a Global Era, International and Cultural Psychology, edited by J. Gelfer. New York: Springer. 

Chinese/Taiwanese

Kao, Ying-Chao. 2010. “Doing Soldier, Making Love, and Becoming Men: An Exploratory Study of Queer Methodology based on Military Fieldwork (做兵、做愛、做男人:從軍事田野經驗探索酷兒理論方法論).” Pp. 331–68 in Qualitative/Gender Studies (質性/別研究), edited by P. Chou and Y.H. Lin. Kaohsiung, Taiwan: Chuliu. 

Books

Translated Laud Humphreys, Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places (茶室交易) from English to Traditional Chinese. Published in 2016 by New Taipei City, Taiwan: Socio 群學.

* 2017 Editor Award of Translated Books from the Taipei International Book Exhibition.

Facebook Feature

Twitter Feature

Giving to Sociology

Appreciate the efforts of sociology at VCU? Why not make a gift to show your support? Be sure to select “sociology” from the drop-down menu to direct your gift.

Donate