Lecture | China Seminar
Politics and Gender
- Date
- Thursday 10 October 2019
- Time
- Location
-
Gravensteen
Pieterskerkhof 6
2311 SR Leiden - Room
- 011
Abstract
Which is more taboo: writing about sex or politics? And what if transsexual subject matter is coupled with the February 28 Incident, the Guomindang government's 1947 massacre of civilians that marked the beginning of the White Terror? On October 10, Leiden University will welcome famous Taiwanese writer Li Ang for a talk on “Politics and gender.”
Bio
Born in 1952, in Lugang (Taiwan), Li Ang published “Flower Season”, her first short story, by the age of 16. After graduating from the philosophy department of the Chinese Culture University, she enrolled at University of Oregon where she earned an MA in theater in 1977. She returned to Taiwan the following year and became assistant professor at the Chinese Culture University.
“Her reputation is based on a masterful prose style and a prolific output that includes pioneering explorations of issues that were taboo morally or politically at the time she wrote […]. Women and gender lie at the center of her concerns in much of her oeuvre; the result is works about feminism, sexuality, the examination of desire the intertwining of gender with politics, lesbianism, and cross-Taiwan Straits romantic love.” (Rosemary M. Haddon, in Chinese Fiction Writers, 1950-2000. Detroit: Gale Cengage Learning, 2013, p. 135 https://bit.ly/2kDN1bT)
Part of her work has been translated into English: Curvaceous Dolls, The Butcher’s Wife, The Lost Garden.
(Re-)discover Li Ang at the Asian Library: https://bit.ly/2mgR51W