If a creative individual identifies as queer or trans, does that fact belong solely to the realm of biography, or does it pertain to their artistic achievement? In Queer and Trans Aesthetics, Lloyd Whitesell discusses literature, visual culture, audio-visual media, music, and performance from the 19th to the 21st century. Through this analysis, Whitesell develops a systematic framework to enrich our understanding of LGBTQ aesthetics and cultural production. He traces the history of queer aesthetic inquiry, develops a justification for a synthetic approach, identifies a fund of expressive strategies motivated by queer subjectivity, and highlights how such strategies create affinity across differences of gender, race, local context, and artistic media.

Rooted in a gender-inclusive theory of queer/trans subjectivity, the book draws on testimony from people of diverse backgrounds, genders, and races. Whitesell engages with debates in the existing scholarly literature while making connections between a wide range of artists: some from mainstream canons, some established subcultural figures, and others only now emerging as notable contributors to queer culture. The book explores five expressive archetypes or poses which have had profound significance in queer art traditions: the Monster, the Victim, the Trickster, the Dandy, and the Dreamer. Each offers a repertoire of creative responses to social oppression and configures queer subjective experience in a unique way. With its unique systematic approach, Queer and Trans Aesthetics enhances our knowledge of queer aesthetic traditions across genres and time.

Sideways Developments examines Hong Kong Anglophone and Cantophone literature and visual culture to trace the forms of queer and trans survival and flourishing in the Asian century. Contesting the cisgender, heterosexual, linear tropes that constitute developmentalist narratives deployed by superpowers—from colonial Britain to 20th-century America to a rising China—Cheang argues that sideways aesthetics define the narratives through which the LGBTQ+ community navigates personal and socioeconomic transitions. Through formalist analyses of a range of genres, Cheang reveals the affordances of queer and trans cultures for addressing the question of Hong Kong during its period of promised transition until 2047.

In this moment of multiple crises, Sideways Developments offers a timely hermeneutic and theory of solidarity and sustainability. The book tracks how sideways aesthetics have evolved from a feature of LGBTQ+ plots, performance, and nonlinear approaches to space-time to a form of togetherness that links postcolonial Hong Kong with struggles worldwide. Using what Cheang terms intersectional formalism as an analytical tool, the book provides a multilayered examination of the alternative pathways exemplified by queer and trans resilience and regeneration.