For anyone who might be interested, I’ve updated a paper, “Male Homosexuality in Cao Xueqin’s Dream of the Red Chamber,” I’d written previously on male homosexuality in the novel “Dream of the Red Chamber,” and it’s now being prepared for publication. I’ve revised some sections and included all of the relevant original Chinese text (although the article itself is in English, but when published will be in Chinese). I’ve also uploaded a couple of things (in Chinese) that I’ve done so far in my research at NTU for anyone who’d like to take a look.
I haven’t had time to read it all yet, but I have read looks interesting.
where will it be published?
Not sure yet … right now it’s just in the revision stage. Hopefully my graduate advisor will let me know in a few weeks … or months. There were a few other articles on this subject published some years ago by a professor in southern Taiwan, Chen Yiyuan, and one back in 1986 by Bai Xianyong on the relationship between Jia Baoyu and Jiang Yuhan (the male actor who later married Hua Xiren, Baoyu’s principal maid), but they weren’t very in-depth. They were both in the publication Lianhe Wenxue, I believe. Eventually I’d like to turn my M.A. thesis into a book, but that’s still a ways off.
You know Brett Hinsch’s book, Passions of the Cut Sleeve, don’t you Little Buddha? Your last post kind of sounded like maybe you weren’t aware of it, but I thought you’d know it for sure. If you don’t, get it immediately – it’s certainly required reading for what you’re doing.
Yes, I know the book very well, and am friends with the author (he’s teaching about women in Chinese history at a university in southern Taiwan). It’s a very good introduction to the topic of homosexuality in Chinese history & literature, but it also has some problems and holes, which Prof. Hinsch readily admits, since it was researched over 20 years ago while he was still an undergrad student. There has been a lot more research since then (unfortunately most of it in the West, and not much done over here). It’s a very fascinating subject, and if you want to get a teaching/research position in Chinese literature in the West, you need to have some background in gender studies, women’s issues, and/or queer studies … these are the hot fields of research now.
Bradley Winter Town has a good review of a new book on gay themes in today’s TT online, I read it here in Korea.
For anyone who’s interested, I’ve just posted my final report for my “Dream of the Red Chamber” class (
LittleBuddha, my hat is off to you! Congrats. You are a gentleman and a scholar! Great work!
In my class today, we had a huge debate on whether a certain passage from the
does something exist if it is not acknowledged? i happened to see “balzac and the little chinese seamstress” the other night. early on there is some reference to the earliest mention of homosexuality in chinese writing. it was kinda tossed in there with no correlation to the story line. if china refuses to acknowledge aspects of her past, did those aspects ever exist?