Join us for a provocative exploration of how animal roleplay became a powerful form of queer resistance and community-building across time and borders. "Howls Across Spacetime" traces the evolution of pup play from its roots in the AIDS crisis—when leatherfolx reimagined sex and care amid devastating loss—to the vibrant pup community in Taiwan, where animal personas have become unexpected symbols in struggles for recognition and democracy.

This multimedia presentation contextualizes pup play within pivotal moments like the 2007 Recession and the smartphone revolution, revealing how political, economic, and technological shifts influenced queer intimacy and networks." By weaving together oral history and archival evidence, we will explore how sexual and gender minorities transform crisis into kinship. 

From San Francisco's “human dog shows” for ACT UP to encrypted gatherings among Taiwan’s “military k9s,” discover how playful mimicking of canines became a sophisticated response to medical stigma, economic precarity, and political erasure. While enjoying the liberatory pleasure of temporary escape from human identities, pup players foreground collective memory preservation in local traditions via embodied practices, title contests, storytelling, and grassroots archiving.

As conservative backlashes intensify globally, this lecture invites audiences to rethink animal roleplay as more than a kink, but a radical act of history-making and a joyous form of resistance. 

G.S. Yang (he/it/whatever), Ph.D., is an award-winning historian studying how ideas about nonhuman animals have shaped human identities and institutions. As a chronicler of alternative sexualities, Yang has documented oral histories from elder leatherfolx and contemporary pup packs, presented at academic conferences, and curated "Pupping Out: A History of Modern Canine Role-Play" at the Leather Archives & Museum. Outside their nerdy pursuits, Yang organizes community workshops on DIY historical documentation, believing that "pup hoods will outlive the book bans."