In this richly illustrated lecture, Joan Judge explores the emergence of “Republican Ladies,” a new group of women in early twentieth century China, who were more visible than their talented late imperial forebears and more respectable than their infamously public courtesan contemporaries. She draws upon photographs and texts that appeared in China’s first commercial women’s journal, Funü shibao 婦女時報 (The women’s eastern times, Shanghai 1911-1917), a journal committed to calling the new Republican woman into being. In her talk, Judge probes the links between this self-conscious reconstitution of Chinese womanhood and the constitution of early Republican culture and politics.

Poster available here.

Joan Judge, Associate Professor in the Department of History and Division of Humanities, York University, Toronto