The Division of Chinese and the Centre for Chinese Language & Culture, NTU, cordially welcome you to the following seminar, to be conducted in Mandarin.  Please register your name with Mrs Tan Bee Lian (CLBLTAN@ntu.edu.sg; 67906121).

Seminar of NTU's Division of Chinese and Centre for Chinese Language & Culture

Topic: Valorization as Rhetoric:  Women's Moral Authority in the Qing "Querelles des Femmes"

Speaker: Yang Binbin
                 Assistant Research Fellow, Institute of Literature,
                 Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Date and Time: 14 November 2008 (Friday), 2.00 pm to 3.30 pm

Venue: CCLC Conference Room

Seminar Abstract

This seminar focuses on the so-called "querelles des femmes" (debates over women) during the Qing period. It argues that the valorization of women's moral authority—the authority that was believed to spring from the Confucian classic The Book of Odes—emerged in these debates primarily as rhetoric, or a means of producing the most persuasive effect in debating. Essentially strengthening gender stereotypes, such valorization nevertheless enabled some male literati and women poets to downplay all the tension and anxiety surrounding female talent. Eventually, it became an aid for women who were "negotiating" with their realities, helping to justify women's education and poetry-writing, accommodated authoritative female voices, and led to women's self-empowerment.

About the Speaker

Yang Bin Bin is Assistant Professor, Institute of Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.  She received PhD in Chinese and Comparative Literature from Washington University in St. Louis.  She is currently a visiting faculty in the Division of Chinese, Nanyang Technological University.  Her research areas include Ming-Qing women's poetry; gender studies.