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Foot binding, or footbinding, was the Chinese custom of breaking and tightly binding the feet of young girls in order to change their shape and size. Feet altered by footbinding were known as lotus feet, and the shoes made for these feet were known as lotus shoes. In late imperial China, bound feet were considered a status symbol and a mark of feminine beauty. However, footbinding was a painful practice that limited the mobility of women and resulted in lifelong disabilities.
Classic Chinese Novels are the best-known novels of pre-modern Chinese literature. These are among the world's longest and oldest novels. They represented a new complexity in structure and sophistication in language that helped to establish the novel as a respected form among later popular audiences and sophisticated critics.
The scholar-officials, also known as literati, scholar-gentlemen or scholar-bureaucrats, were government officials and prestigious scholars in Chinese society, forming a distinct social class.
David Shepherd Nivison was an American Sinologist and scholar known for his publications on late imperial and ancient Chinese history, philology, and philosophy, and his 40 years as a professor at Stanford University. Nivison is known for his use of archaeoastronomy to accurately determine the date of the founding of the Zhou dynasty as 1045 BC instead of the traditional date of 1122 BC.
Judith T. Zeitlin is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. Her areas of interest are Ming-Qing literary and cultural history, with specialties in the classical tale and drama. In 2011 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Zhang Xuecheng was a Qing dynasty historian, writer and philosopher. His father and his grandfather had been government officials, but, although Zhang achieved the highest civil service examination degree in 1778, he never held high office. Zhang's ideas about the historical process were revolutionary in many ways and he became one of the most enlightened historical theorists of the Qing dynasty, but he spent much of his life in near poverty without the support of a patron and, in 1801, he died, poor and with few friends. It was not until the late 19th century that Chinese scholars began to accept the validity of Zhang's ideas.
Women in ancient and imperial China were restricted from participating in various realms of social life, through social stipulations that they remain indoors, whilst outside business should be conducted by men. The strict division of the sexes, apparent in the policy that "men plow, women weave", partitioned male and female histories as early as the Zhou dynasty, with the Rites of Zhou even stipulating that women be educated specifically in "women's rites". Though limited by policies that prevented them from owning property, taking examinations, or holding office, their restriction to a distinctive women's world prompted the development of female-specific occupations, exclusive literary circles, whilst also investing certain women with certain types of political influence inaccessible to men. Women had greater freedom during the Tang dynasty, however, the status of women declined from the Song dynasty onward, which has been blamed on the rise of neo-Confucianism, and restrictions on women became more pronounced.
Dorothy Ko is a Professor of History and Women's Studies at the Barnard College of Columbia University. She is a historian of early modern China, known for her multi-disciplinary and multi-dimensional research. As a historian of early modern China, she has endeavored to engage with the field of modern China studies; as a China scholar, she has always positioned herself within the study of women and gender and applied feminist approaches in her work; as a historian, she has ventured across disciplinary boundaries, into fields that include literature, visual and material culture, science and technology, as well as studies of fashion, the body and sexuality.
In 2019, China ranked 39th out of 189 countries on the United Nations Development Programme's Gender Inequality Index (GII). Among the GII components, China's maternal mortality ratio was 32 out of 100,000 live births. In education 58.7 percent of women age 25 and older had completed secondary education, while the counterpart statistic for men was 71.9 percent. Women's labour power participation rate was 63.9 percent, and women held 23.6 percent of seats in the National People's Congress. In 2019, China ranked 39 out of the 162 countries surveyed during the year.
Fu Sheng, also known as Master Fu (伏生), was a Chinese philosopher and writer. He was a Confucian scholar of the Qin and Western Han dynasties of ancient China, famous for saving the Confucian classic Shangshu from the book burning of the First Emperor of Qin. Fu Sheng is depicted in the Wu Shuang Pu by Jin Guliang.
Ernü Yingxiong Zhuan, sometimes translated into English as A Tale of Lovers and Heroes and A Tale of Heroic Lovers, is a Chinese novel in 40 chapters first printed in 1878 during the late Qing dynasty. It is written by Yanbei Xianren (燕北闲人), the pen name of Wen Kang, a Manchu of an Eight Banner family. The novel is composed of vignettes that concern He Yufeng (何玉凤), also called "Thirteenth Sister" (十三妹). He Yufeng seeks revenge for her father, who died in prison because of persecution by a high official. She rescues a virtuous young woman, Ms. Zhang, and a heroic young scholar, An Ji (安骥) from cannibals. When An Ji becomes a high official, he marries both Hu and Zhang and when a new emperor ascends the throne, her father finally receives justice. Her actions are characterized by the traditional Confucian virtues, loyalty, piety, righteousness, love and heroism but the resolution of the novel comes through luck, or fate.
Evelyn Sakakida Rawski is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of History of the University of Pittsburgh and a scholar in Chinese and Inner Asian history. She was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States of Japanese-American ancestry. She served as president of the Association for Asian Studies in 1995–1996.
William T. Rowe is an historian of China, and John and Diane Cooke Professor of Chinese History, Department of History, The Johns Hopkins University. He considers himself a social historian of modern China, with both "social" and "modern" very broadly conceived, and works on every century from the 14th to the 20th.
Jin Yi (1770–1794) 金逸 courtesy name Xianxian 纖纖, was a Qing dynasty poet from Suzhou. Born into a local gentry family, she demonstrated remarkable talent at a very young age, and surpassed all her brothers when learning to compose poetry. Considered one of the most talented students of Yuan Mei, 108 of her poems were included in his anthology of works by his female students, the Suiyuan nüdizi shixuan. In his eulogy of Jin Yi, Yuan Mei wrote: “At a very early age she could already read books and distinguish the four tones. She loved to compose poetry, and every time she let fall her brush it was like a fleet horse prancing along unable to talk.” A contemporary Qing poetess, Wang Zhenyi, considered her to be an emblematic "banished immortal", akin to Li Bai. Jin Yi's complete collection of poetic works in four volumes was titled Shouyinlou Shicao.
Gu Mei, better known by her art name Gu Hengbo, also known as Xu Mei and Xu Zhizhu after her marriage, was a Chinese courtesan, poet and painter. She received the title "Lady (furen)" from the early Qing court, and often addressed as "Lady Hengbo" in Qing writings.
The High Qing era refers to the golden age between 1683 and 1799 during the Qing dynasty of China during which the empire's prosperity and power grew to new heights. Set after the rule of the Ming dynasty, the High Qing saw China transformed into a commercial state with nearly twice the population of its predecessor, due to high political stability. Improvements in literacy also took place during this period, and China's territory greatly expanded north and west compared to the previous Ming dynasty.
Widow chastity was an ideal in traditional Chinese cultural practices and beliefs that honored widowed women and discouraged their remarriage, encouraging them instead to live a life of "virtuous chastity". The idea of widow chastity has a long history in China, but the emphasis on the practice is believed to have its origin among Song dynasty Neo-Confucians, and reached a culmination and eventual end in the Qing era.
This bibliography covers the English language scholarship of major studies in Chinese history.
The Eight Beauties of Qinhuai, also called the Eight Beauties of Jinling, were eight famous courtesans during the Ming-Qing transition period who resided along the Qinhuai River in Nankin. As well as possessing great beauty, they were all skilled in literature, poetry, fine arts, dancing and music.
He Shuangqing was a Chinese poet who lived during the Qing dynasty. She is best known for her work in the lyric genre, but also composed poems in regulated verse. Her song lyrics are frequently included in anthologies of women's poetry from the late imperial period and she has been named as one of the three major female lyric poets of the Qing dynasty.
References
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