This presentation is an invitation to consider what lessons Heated Rivalry -- the book series, the Crave show and the cultural phenomenon -- can offer us about identity, difference and power. Considering both the internal universe of Heated Rivalry as well as its global public reception, I examine the way that Canadianness, in particular, is invoked in ways that demand that we attend carefully to the politics of nation and its narration. 

Dr. John Paul (JP) Catungal (he/him) is Associate Professor in the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice and Co-Director of the Centre for Asian Canadian Research and Engagement. An interdisciplinary scholar whose work sits at the nexus of feminist and queer of colour theorizing and critical human geographies, JP’s scholarship and community engagement work are broadly committed to uplifting marginalized communities’ organizing and cultural production efforts as practices of placemaking and knowledge production from below.  A self-professed ‘loon’, JP examines the popular TV show Heated Rivalry, drawing in particular on queer of colour theories and Asian Canadian studies to examine the show’s narrativization and visual representations of queerness, racialization and nationalism, as well as its popular incorporation into larger discourses of Canadian identity and global sexual politics. A key aspect of JP’s work on Heated Rivalry is public education. He developed the widely circulated Heated Rivalry public syllabus, and organized the “Heated Rivalry through an Asian Canadian Studies Lens” monthly summer lecture series. His insights on Heated Rivalry have been featured in the Toronto Star, Xtra, CBC News and Gay Times Magazine.