FALL 1995
EALC 389
Women in Chinese History
Instructor: Patricia Ebrey
Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
608 S. Mathews
e-mail p-ebrey@uiuc.edu
Readings: a packet of articles plus five books to be purchased:
Johnson, Women, the Family and Peasant Revolution in China Ebrey, The Inner Quarters
Gilmartin et al, Engendering China
Honig and Hershatter, Personal Voices Ono, Chinese Women in a Century of Revolution, 1850-1950
Course requirements:
Reading all assignments before the session and active participation in the discussion. (15%)
A 3-page critical review of a listed article, summarized for the class at the appropriate time. (10%)
A 4-page critical review of a book on women in Chinese history of relatively recent date, written in English summarized for the class at the appropriate time. (20%)
A research paper on a topic approved by the instructor. Target length: 15 pages. Oral presentation of main arguments to the class in the thirteenth week. Final version due December 5. (35%)
A take-home examination (a three page paper on a broad interpretive question ) (20%)
Paper Topics: Almost anything relevant is acceptable, but I would especially like to see explorator papers that get into aspects and topics not yet studied in detail. In other words, rather than read paper that repeat material I already know, I would love to learn something new. Please feel free to bring in whatever knowledge, theory, or skills you have acquired in other courses. Those who can read Chinese are encouraged to draw on Chinese language materials. But whatever tack you take, talk to me before you plunge too deeply into your paper.
Full Schedule for EALC 389 Women in Chinese History
Fall 1995
8/24 Introduction
8/29,-9/31 Putting Women into History: Approaches Smith, "Gender, Reproduction, and European History." Ebrey, "Women, Marriage, and the Family in Chinese History" Furth in Engendering China
Part 1: Continuities and Broad Cultural Orientations
9/5-7 Gender in Chinese Culture: Yin-Yang, gods and ghosts, masculine and feminine Inner Quarters, 21-44
Ahern, Emily M. 1975. "Power and Pollution of Chinese
Women." in Wolf and Witke, Women in China Furth, Charlotte. 1986. "Blood, Body and Gender: Medical
Images of the Female Condition in China," Chinese Science 7:53-65.
Judith Zeitlin, Historian of the Strange: Pu Songling and
the Chinese Classical Tale, pp. 98-131.
Article reviews:
Harrell, Stevan. 1986. "Men, Women, and Ghosts in
Taiwanese Folk Religion," in Gender and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols, eds. Caroline Walker Bynum, Stevan Harrell and Paula Richman. Boston: Beacon Press. Sangren, P. Steven. 1983. "Female Gender in Chinese
Religious Symbols: Kuan Yin, Ma Tsu, and the "Eternal Mother." Signs 9.1:4-25.
Black, Allison H. 1986. "Gender and Cosmology in Chinese
Correlative Thinking," in Gender and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols, ed. Caroline Walker Bynum, Stevan Harrell, and Paula Richman. Boston: Beacon Press. Birrell, Anne M. 1985. "The Dusty Mirror: Courtly
Portraits of Woman in Southern Dynasties Love Poetry," in Expressions of Self in Chinese Literature, ed. by Robert E. Hegel and Richard C. Hessney. New York: Columbia University Press
Reed, Barbara E. 1992. "The Gender Symbolism of Kuan-yin
Bodhisattva," in Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender, ed. Jose Ignacio Cabezon. Albany: State University of New York Press. Pp. 159-80.
9/12-14 Confucian Paradigms and the Patrilineal Family
System
Sourcebook, pp. 72-76, 238-44, 253-553, 26-329. Guisso, "Thunder Over the Late: The Five Classics and the
Perception of Woman in Early China" in R.L. Guisso and Stanley Johannesen, ed. 1981. Women in China. Youngstown, N.Y.: Philo.
Inner Quarters, 45-60, 82-98, 114-130, 152-216
Article Reviews:
Martin-Liao, Tianchi. 1985. "Traditional Handbooks of
Women's Education," in Women and Literature in China, ed. Anna Gerstlacher, Ruth Keen, Wolfgang Kubin, Margit Miosga, and Jenny Schon. Bochum: Studienverlag Brockmeyer
Sung, Marina. 1981. "The Chinese Lieh-n Tradition" in R.L.
Guisso and Stanley Johannesen, ed. Women in China. Youngstown, N.Y.: Philo.
Kelleher, Theresa. 1987. "Confucianism," in Women in World
Religions, edited by Arvind Sharma. New York: State University of New York Press, pp. 135-59. Hsiung, Ping-chen. 1994. "Constructed Emotions: The
Bonds Between Mothers and Sons in Late Imperial China," Late Imperial China 15.1:87-177.
Book Reviews:
O'Hara, Albert Richard. 1971. The Position of Women in
Early China. Taipei: Mei Ya.
Paul, Diana. 1980. Women in Buddhism: Images of the
Feminine in Mahayana Tradition. Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press.
Wolf, Margery. 1972. Women and the Family in Rural Taiwan.
Stanford: Stanford University Press.
9-19-21 Concubines
Inner Quarters, 217-34, 250-60
Sourcebook, pp. 245-52.
Rubie S. Watson. 1991b. "Wives, Concubines, and Maids:
Servitude and Kinship in the Hong Kong Region, 1900- 1941," in Marriage and Inequality in Chinese Society, ed. Rubie S. Watson and Patricia Buckley Ebrey. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Book Reviews:
McMahon, Keith. 1995. Misers, Shrews, and Polygamists:
Sexuality and Male-Female Relations in Eighteenth-Century Chinese Fiction. Durham: Duke University Press Jaschok, Maria. 1988. Concubines and Bondservants: The
Social History of a Chinese Custom. London: Zed Books.
Part II: Women in Historical Change: Three Moments
9/26-28 The Song Dynasty,
Inner Quarters,1-6, 61-81, 99-113, 131-51, 261-71
Book Reviews:
Guisso, R. W. L. 1978. Wu Tse-t'ien and the Politics of
Legitimation in T'ang China. Bellingham, Wash.: Western Washington University Program in East Asian Studies Occasional Papers.
Chung, Pricilla. 1981. Palace Women in the Northern Sung,
960-1126 (Monographies du T'oung Pao, 12). Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Article reviews:
Birge, Bettine. 1989. "Chu Hsi and Women's Education," in
Neo-Confucian Education: The Formative Stage, ed. Wm. Theodore de Bary and John W. Chaffee. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Chaffee, John. 1991. "The Marriage of Sung Imperial
Clanswomen," in Marriage and Inequality in Chinese Society, ed. Rubie S. Watson and Patricia Buckley Ebrey. Berkeley: University of California Press. Yang, Lien-sheng. 1960-61. "Female Rulers in Imperial
China," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 23:47-61.
10/3-5 The Late Ming, Early Qing
Handlin, Joanna F. 1975. "L K'un's New Audience: The
Influence of Women's Literacy on Sixteenth-Century Thought." In Wolf and Witke, Women in China. Ropp, Paul S. 1976. "Seeds of Change: Reflections on the
Condition of Women in Early and Mid Ch'ing." Signs 2:5- 23.
Mann and Carlitz in Engendering China
Article reviews:
Ellen Widmer, 1992. "Xiaoqing's Literary Legacy and the
Place of the Woman Writer in Late Imperial China." Late Imperial China 13.1:111-55.
Mann, Susan1987. "Women in the Kinship, Class, and
Community Structures of Qing Dynasty China," Journal of Asian Studies 46:37-56.
Elvin, Mark. 1984. "Female Virtue and the State in China."
Past and Present 104:111-152.
Rowe, William T. 1992. "Women and the Family in Mid-Qing
Social Thought: The Case of Ch'en Hung-mou," Late Imperial China
Paderni, Paola. 1995. "I Thought I would Have Some Happy
Days: Women Eloping in Eighteenth-Century China," Late Imperial China 16.1:1-32.
Tao, Chia-lien Pao. 1991. "Chaste Widows and Institutions
to Support Them in Late-Qing China," Asia Major (Ser. 3) 4.1:101-19.
Book Reviews:
Dorothy Ko, Teachers of the Inner Chambers. Stanford University Press, 1994.
T'ien, Ju-k'ang. 1988. Male Anxiety and Female Chastity:
A Comparative Study of Chinese Ethical Values in MingCh' ing Times. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
10/10-12 Women and Gender in the Dream of the Red Chamber,I
Selections from The Story of the Stone
Yu, Anthony C. 1980. "Self and Family in the Hung-lou
Meng: A New Look at Lin Tai-y as Tragic .H.eroine,
CLEAR,2.2: 199-223.
Wagner, Marsha. 1985. "Maids and Servants in Dreams of the
Red Chamber: Individuality and the Social Order," in
Expressions of Self in Chinese Literature, ed. Robert
E. Hegel and Richard C. Hessney. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Article reviews:
Wong Kam-ming, 1985. "Point of View and Feminism: Images
of Women in Hongloumeng," in Women and Literature in
China, ed. Anna Gerstlacher, Ruth Keen, Wolfgang Kubin,
Margit Miosga and Jenny Schon. Bochum: Brockmeyer
Waltner, Ann. 1989. "On Not Becoming a Heroine: Lin Dai-
yu and Cui Ying-ying," Signs15.1:61-78.
10/17-19 Dream of the Red Chamber, II Selections from The Story of the Stone
Edwards, Louise. 1990. "Women in Honglou meng:
Prescriptions of Purity in the Femininity of Qing Dynasty China." Modern China 16.4:407-29.
Edwards, Louise. 1994. Men and Women in Qing China:
Gender in the Red Chamber Dream Leiden: Brill., ch. 7: "The Jia Family Women: Unrestrained 'Indulgent Mothers'"
10/24-26 The Early Twentieth Century and Feminist Movements
Ono, Kazuko. 1988. Chinese Women in a Century of Revolution, 1850-1950. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 54-139
Johnson, Women, the Family and Peasant Revolution, pp. 27- 35.
Gilmartin in Engendering China"
Article Reviews:
Feuerwerker, Yi-tsi. 1975. "Women as Writers in the 1920s
and 1930s." In Wolf and Witke, op. cit. Honig, Emily. 1985. "Burning Incense, Pledging
Sisterhood: Communities of Women Workers in the Shanghai Cotton Mills, 1919-1949," Signs 10.4. Mann, Susan. 1992. "Women's Work in the Ningbo Area,
1900-1936." In Chinese History in Economic Perspective, ed. Thomas G. Rawski and Lillian M. Li. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 243-70.
Book Reviews:
Honig, Emily. 1986. Sisters and Strangers: Women in the
Shanghai Cotton Mills, 1919-1949. Santford: Stanford University Press.
10/21-11/1 Women in the Early Communist Movement Johnson, pp. 37-89.
Ono, pp. 140-75.
Article Reviews:
Prazniak, Roxann. 1986. "Weavers and Sorceresses of
Chuansha: The Social Origins of Political Activism Among Rural Chinese Women." Modern China 12:202-29. Strahan, Patricia. 1983. "Labor Heroines of Yan'an." Modern China 9:228-52
11/7-9 Women in the PRC, 1949-80
Johnson, pp. 91-233
White and Rofel in Engendering China
Book Reviews:
Andors, Phyllis. 1983. The Unfinished Liberation of
Chinese Women, 1949-1980. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Meijer, M. J. 1971. Marriage Law and Policy in the People's Republic of China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Wolf, Margery. 1985. Revolution Postponed: Women in Contemporary China. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Stacey, Judith. 1983. Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution in China. Berkeley: University of California Press.
11/14-21 Student presentations
11/30, 12/5-7 The 1980s and 1990s
Honig and Hershatter, Personal Voices
Li Ziyun and Zhu Hong in Engendering China.
Book Reviews:
Judd, Ellen R. 1994. Gender and Power in Rural North China. Stanford: Stanford University Press.