Encountering a Land of Women − Gender Inversion in Qing Dynasty Travel Writing

Prof. Emma J. Teng (Cambridge, MA)
Encountering a Land of Women − Gender Inversion in Qing Dynasty Travel Writing

Tuesday, November 14, 2023, 4-6pm
University of Basel, Kollegienhaus, lecture room 120

In her lecture, Emma J. Teng will examine the representation of foreign women in late imperial China, focusing on travel writing on Taiwan, an island newly conquered by the Qing in 1683.

Drawing on well-established pre-modern Chinese tropes, Qing travel writers commonly employed the conceit of gender inversion in depicting Taiwan's indigenous women, using gender as a lens through which to represent Taiwan's alterity. Gender and ethnicity thus became closely intertwined in Qing ethnographic and colonial discourse. The use of gender inversion in Qing travel accounts of Europe will also be compared as a means of elucidating the colonial dynamics of the era.

We would be very pleased to welcome you to this event in November. The lecture will be followed by an apéro.

For questions please contact: fnz-sekretariat-geschichte@unibas.ch