The Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS) was honoured to invite the visiting scholar of ICS Visiting Fellowship Programme – Dr. Mengdie Zhao, Assistant Professor of Global China Studies at NYU Shanghai – to deliver a public lecture on the topic of “Girls Go to Court: Imagining Chaste Female Litigants in Qing Performative Literature”.

 

Dr. Zhao is currently working on her book project, tentatively titled Shades of Justice: Law, Legal Culture, and Literary Experimentation in Early Modern China. Through examples such as The Hundred Cases - Née Qin’s Soul Returns to Have Chen Shimei Exiled, The Fire Horse, The Blood Palm Print, etc., the audience learned more about how the trial process and verdicts reflect the changes in society’s views on female chastity at the time. Dr. Zhao argued that the status and rights of women had improved with changes over time, as more descriptions of “filial wives” and “filial daughters” appeared in local gazetteers during the 18th century. The lecture allowed the audience to understand these literary works and the social changes they reflect from new perspectives.