Gender and Identity in the Visual Culture of Ancient China
The construction of gender and identity through visual culture and mortuary practice in ancient China is at the core of this panel discussion. Using the overarching concept of agency theory developed in art history and archaeology, the panellists will investigate how aspects of visual culture, such as diagrams, imageries, and artefacts and written language were utilized to articulate the multiple aspects of gender identities from the Bronze Age through the Tang Dynasty (c. 2000 BCE to 907 CE). The dynamic intersections between gender, politics, and power, and perceptions of the afterlife and cosmologic thinking will also be carefully considered to address the processes and motivations behind gender creation and/or recreation. Yan Sun examines how the gendered identity of married noblewomen were carefully presented by the lineage she was married into through visual culture in tombs and how that construction was closely tied to the Western Zhou political establishment; Constance Cook looks at visual representations of the human body on newly discovered pre-Han bamboo divination manuals and addresses how cosmological thinking impacted the formation of the representation of the gendered body; Yan Liu discusses how female identity and power were constructed in funerary contexts through the study of dynamic interactions between people and artefacts;and Leslie V. Wallace investigates how the construction of gendered space in the tomb of Tang crown prince Yide was visualized through the selection of iconographic representations of avian imageries. Collectively, the panel will offer new insights about gender and identities in ancient China.
Field of Study:
Chairs:
Yan Sun,Gettysburg College - ysun@gettysburg.edu
and
Yan Liu,Northwestern Polytechnical University - fionaliu1202@yahoo.com
Discussant:
Katheryn M. Linduff,University of Pittsburgh - linduff@pitt.edu
