Institute of Chinese Studies was honoured to invite our visiting scholar from the ICS Visiting Fellowship Programme, Prof. Hui Faye Xiao, Professor of Chinese Literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Kansas, to deliver a public lecture titled “The Hen Cackles in the Morning – Gendered Soundscape and Female Leadership in Modern Chinese Literature and Cinema” on 25 September 2024.

Prof. Xiao is the author of Family Revolution: Marital Strife in Contemporary Chinese Literature and Visual Culture (2014) and Youth Economy, Crisis, and Reinvention in Twenty-First Century China: Morning Sun in the Tiny Times (2020). Currently she is working on a third monograph regarding to gendered soundscape and female leadership in Modern Chinese Literature and Cinema.

Prof. Xiao began the lecture by referencing the stipulation from The Book of Documents that “hens must not cackle in the morning”. She then drew on a range of literature on feminine noises in daily life, showcasing the indirect portrayal of women in traditional Chinese contexts. Two films, Colors of Spring (1959) and Our Times Will Come (2017), were used as examples to further illustrate the evolution of women’s roles and status across different eras and regions. During the Q&A session, scholars from local universities actively posed questions, sparking lively and fruitful discussions and exchanges.