How could the concept of the abject femininity be re-envisioned in early modern Chinese folk narratives? How do abject feminine characters, whether immortal, conniving or dangerous, expose and speak to the fragility of law and order in paternal social and familial systems? For Julia Kristeva, the abject always draws the subject “toward the place where meaning collapses,” and gains its vigor from what “disturbs identity, system, order.” Connecting Kristeva’s discussion of the abject to portrayals of non-normative feminine subjectivities in early modern Chinese folk narratives, this panel explores how abject women such as jealous housewives, revengeful concubines, ghostly damsels, and demonic female yakshas repudiate normative gender roles and embody varied forms of gender politics and transgression. By considering abject heroines in a diverse range of understudied materials, ranging from medieval Buddhist narratives to early modern fiction and fantastic tales, panelists consider how portrayals of abject womanhood give rise to complex imaginations of feminine subjectivities; how these representations may facilitate dialectical circulations of feminine desire, and respond to religious or secular practices of moral sanction and purification.

Qiaomei Tang examines Buddhist approaches to female jealousy in medieval China. Contrary to the forgiving or even approving attitudes female jealousy often found in historical accounts, Buddhist retribution tales portrayed maids or concubines who, subjected to brutal treatment by jealous wives, seek revenge through divine or supernatural means. This narrative framework serves a larger discourse aimed at reforming jealous women. The severity of the punishment is linked to mortality. If the maid suffered physical harm, the wife could seek repentance with a Buddhist master, potentially recovering from the same injuries. Yet, justice wasn’t always served for the maids. If the maid died due to the wife’s jealousy, forgiveness was not an option. The wife would meet a similar fate as her victim. A significant contrast emerges in the treatment of jealous wives between religious texts and other literature, with the former emphasizing the plight of the forgotten maid. The punishment for the wife depends on whether she committed murder, with her own life being the consequence if she did. This comparison suggests that Buddhism brings attention to the suffering of socially inferior women.

Fumiko Joo discusses visualization of the male erotic liaison with uncanny women as represented in the illustrations of Chinese tales of the strange (zhiguai). In Humei congtan (Collected talks on fox seduction), a collection of fox tales compiled in the Wanli reign period (1573-1620), a tale includes an illustration depicting the erotic scene between a mortal man and seductive vixens. The visual image of uncanny sexual intercourse reveals what the language of the text does not convey. The interaction of the visual and verbal create new meanings through representations of the erotic and uncanny in Ming-dynasty narratives. Further, Chinese tales of the strange disseminated widely in pre-modern East Asia and inspired the literati beyond the lingual, cultural, and geo-political regions. Humei congtan attracted Hayashi Razan (1583-1657), one of the most distinguished Confucian scholars of early modern Japan. His hand-written manuscript of Humei congtan is not merely a copy of the Chinese text but subtly altered illustrations, suggesting his aesthetic and moral judgment of the erotic. Joo thus offers a cross-cultural analysis of the verbal and visual representation of the erotic encounters with supernatural women.

Finally, Nellie Ting Yang studies heterodox womanhood in a seventeenth-century novel Nukaike zhuan (An Examination for Women). In the novel, a heroine seeks to avenge the execution of her husband. Known only by a derogatory nickname “Female Yaksha,” she tempts readers to recognize her wit and courage against all moral accusations. She is consistently dismissed through dehumanizing designations from yaksha, gui (ghost) to yao (demon). Read in the light of the entire novel, the demonization of Female Yaksha is echoed by a passing criticism of what the novelist calls “sheyao,” referring to female members of poetry societies who try to pass themselves off as talented poets with ghostwritten poems and copy-and-pasted verses. Two wholly different female images - the resentful widow-avenger and the fame-thirsting imposter-poets - are temporarily allied in their common embodiment of heterodox femininities. By reading Nukaike zhuan as concerned with negotiations between the gatekeeping of official power and playful transgressions thereof, Yang inquires into the nonhuman category of yaksha, gui and yao, by offering a comparative reading of the novel with the true case on which it is alleged based.

The panel consists of three fifteen-minute presentations, a concise comment from the respondent, and twenty minutes’ Q&A.