This course explores gender and sexuality in China before the 20th century. Are “women” and “men” useful categories of analysis for premodern China, or did people think of themselves in other terms? What role did bodies, duties, virtues, and desires play in relationships among people? What role did writing play in negotiations of gender roles and expressions of sexual desire in premodern China? In this course, you will learn how gender and sexuality functioned in a range of premodern discourses and practices. We will begin by reading foundational Buddhist, Daoist, Confucian texts that prescribe gendered roles and virtues. We will bring these into conversation with the conception of the body and sex difference presented in traditional medical texts, which drew on all of these traditions. In the second part of the course, we will investigate the relationship between writing and gender, asking how people described gender and sexuality in letters, poetry, plays, novels, and short stories. We engage these experimental, utopian, or prescriptive gendered textual spaces with an interest to understand how people conceived of the delights and dangers, possibilities, and constraints of the negotiations between their bodies and texts. We will occasionally take our investigation beyond the textual realm to consider other sorts of objects: paintings, decorative objects, book illustrations, and theatrical performances. We will conclude by evaluating attacks on the traditional sex-gender system by feminist modernizing movements at the turn of the 20th century.

Course Requirements:

In-Class Participation 20%; Informal Writing 20%; Formal Essays (2) 30% (15% each); Final Project with in-class presentation 30%; Attendance -2% for each unexcused absence

Intended Audience:

This course is appropriate for students at the sophomore level and above. It is intended to bring together students with an interest in China studies, gender and sexuality studies, and performance studies.

Class Format:

Two 90-minute meetings weekly