Women Making Art, Making Themselves in 19th-Century China

September 13, 12:00pm - 1:15pm
Mānoa Campus, 325 Henke Hall Add to Calendar

-Biography Brown Bag Series 2012-

Women Making Art, Making Themselves: Self-Fashioning by Female Artists and Collectors in 19th-century China
By Shana Brown

Other than courtesans, women in nineteenth-century China, even within the educated elite, had few opportunities to live as public intellectuals. However, many of them devoted themselves to painting, literature, and private art collecting, and thereby transcended the domestic sphere. These women were precursors of a generation of educated and publically-engaged Chinese woman that became prominent in early twentieth-century politics and culture. How were nineteenth-century female artists regarded within the Confucian family order, and how was their artistic activity relevant to subsequent waves of political and social transformation?

Speaker Bio:
Shana J. Brown is Associate Professor of History at UH Mānoa. Her book Pastimes: From Art and Antiquarianism to Modern Chinese Historiography (2011) showed the ongoing importance of traditional art and practices of collecting ancient artifacts to modern Chinese historical studies. Her current research topics include Chinese photography as well as other forms of visual culture and collecting practices, focusing on Chinese women in the 19th and 20th centuries.


Event Sponsor
Center for Biographical Research, Mānoa Campus

More Information
956-3774, biograph@hawaii.edu, http://www.facebook.com/CBRHawaii

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