Friday, November 10, 2023 | 6pm to 7:30pm
25 West 43rd Street, 10th Floor, Room 1000
between 5th & 6th Avenues, Manhattan
In classical Chinese literature, the image of an abandoned woman pining for her absent lover and the sentiments of resentment and loneliness have long been taken as the quintessential characters of women’s voices. Their long-lasting cultural impacts are still vividly present in various representations of traditional women in contemporary pop-culture, which tend to fall into the stereotypes of chaste house wives and neglected palace ladies. Were literary voices of women in traditional China always sorrowful and resentful? Were romantic love and longing the only topics women were interested in or good at writing?
Prof. Qiulei Hu’s recently published monograph, Abandoned Women and Boudoir Resentment, places these established images and voices of “women” under critical scrutiny to reveal the process of their making, mostly at the hands of male writers. Prof. Qiulei Hu highlights the historicity of the feminine voice and points to specific moments in the early medieval period (3rd to 6th century) during which it became recognized, accepted, and canonized. Abandoned Women and Boudoir Resentment questions and challenges established notions not only about the representation of gender in literature and culture, but also about textual stability, authorship, the literary canon, and literary history.
For this talk, Prof. Hu will provide an overview of her book and present material from Chapter 1. She will show that moral anxiety about the representation of women prompted third-century male writers to switch the focus from external beauty to inner thoughts and emotions. This inward turn made it possible for male writers to speak on behalf of the represented woman and to project their own feelings. This trend is demonstrated with the transformation of a popular image in Chinese literature: the mulberry-picking girl in third-century literary writing.
Purchase Book: https://brill.com/display/title/64004
(Annual summer sale 50% off with the code 71645 until 9/30)
