An RPg Interdisciplinary Reading Group on Women’s World Literature event

Date: Friday, 23 May 2025
Time: 4:00 -6:30 pm
Venue: 3/F., FKH, E-Zone

Speaker: Dr. Aerith Au, Writer & Lecturer (PT)

This talk examines how second-generation Chinese women in Western diasporas negotiate the tension between Confucian femininity – a persistent ideology that remains deeply rooted in contemporary Chinese culture – and their own bicultural identity formation. While Western popular media often reduces Chinese women into binary extremes of the ‘dragon lady’ or ‘China doll’ stereotypes, these women’s heritage culture simultaneously constraints them through traditional texts like Nujie (女誡 Lessons for Women), which prescribe domesticity and obedience. Drawing on various novels by Chinese American and British Chinese writers, this talk will explore the strategies in which second-generation Chinese women may employ to reconcile with their cultural identities, reject gender stereotypes and articulate an autonomous femininity that synthesises their bicultural identities with contemporary feminist consciousness.

All are welcome!

For enquiries, please contact alicevharling@link.cuhk.edu.hk