A sinologist by training, studying Chinese literature with a focus on the early modern period (Ming and Qing), Professor Zamperini will engage in a transcultural conversation about studying and teaching sex and pornography in a global context in her lecture "Will the (Disciplinary) Twain Ever Meet? Thinking Sex East and West." Drawing from her experience as a scholar and a teacher posed at the intersections of early modern Chinese literary studies, gender and sexuality studies, and feminist theory, she will discuss the fraught relationships between disciplines in the context of Euro-American academia, in order to open up a conversation about ways to move beyond disciplinary divides and hierarchical and one-directional trajectories between academic fields.
Her talk is an ouverture to events taking place in the winter semester when Professor Zamperini will be organizing two workshops around the topic (Workshop 1, November 11 Thinking Sex with the Early Moderns. The Plum in the Golden Vase, The Carnal Prayer Mat, and The Dream of The Red Chamber and Workshop 2, November 30-December 1st, Representing Sex. A Transcultural Conversation).
Paola Zamperini is an associate professor for Chinese Literature at the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at Nothwestern University. She has a Ph.D. in Chinese Literature and Women and Gender Studies from the University of California at Berkeley. Her first book, Lost Bodies: Prostitution and Masculinity in Chinese Fiction published with Brill in 2010 is a comprehensive study of representations of courtesans and prostitutes in late-Qing fiction.
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