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Date
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2:00 pm to 3:00 pm
Venue
Virtual Event

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Dylan Ke Wang

Note: Internal event not open to external attendees.

MA Chinese Studies Dissertation Showcase

"An Ideal Woman": Cross-dressing and Male Homoerotic Desire in Modern Chinese Literature

by Dylan Ke Wang (MA, 2019-20)

Abstract

The Chinese theatrical tradition of female impersonation by male actors goes back almost a millennium, and culminated during the Republican years (1912-1949) when such dan [旦] actors (female impersonators) as Mei Lanfang [梅蘭芳] became the artistic face of China. While the whole nation went crazy for Mei, reformers like Lu Xun [魯迅] found this craze perverted and decadent, not to mention harmful to China’s national image in a world where only the fittest (read masculine) could survive. “The art that is the most noble, most eternal, and most universal in China is the art of men impersonating women,” he once wrote bitterly regarding Mei. In a most uncanny way, despite a nationwide campaign to “closet” the transvestite within the invisible walls of the stage, he took refuge in literary imagination. In the decades to come, he would periodically return to the public arena as “an ideal woman,” “to haunt, to startle, and way-lay,” and Mei Lanfang would become a major inspiration for such representations.

Interestingly, when the cross-dressed figure is safely confined amongst the safety of set pieces, he is indulged—idolised even; but when he ventures out into the real world, chaos invariably ensues. This situational logic characterizes most, if not all, narratives featuring the transvestite. He is typically portrayed as an intruder, dead set against the neat gender binarism of “real” men and women. It is representation of such intrusions (and attempted intrusions) in modern Chinese literature that forms the subject of this dissertation.

All are welcome but registration is required.

Registration by 15 March 2021 RSVP Google Registration Form

Contact email: xl1@soas.ac.uk

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