Technology, Human Reproduction and Motherhood in Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction

2021-04-21

6:00 PM - 7:00 PM

Lefeng.Lin@xjtlu.edu.cn

活动详情

  • 时间: 6:00-7:00pm
  • 日期: 2021年,4月21日,星期三
  • 地点: 北校区中心楼博物馆,CB123W

活动简介

With its assertion of feminist consciousness and deconstruction of phallogo-centrism, feminist science fiction reveals the natural ally of science fiction and feminism by offering bold imaginations of bodily transformation, changing gender roles, new sexual identities and even a posthuman-feminist world. Contemporary Chinese sci-fi authors have experimented with fresh ideas on bio-technologies, power and gender in their fantastical or speculative works.

This talk will focus on a number of significant sci-fi works with the themes of bio-technologies and human reproduction by Chinese sci-fi authors Zhao Haihong, Chen Qiufan and Han Song. These stories offer inspiring insights into the future of new bio-technology regarding procreation, virtual reality of childbirth and child rearing, gene engineering of cloining humans, as well as new family relationships. The study will examine the following questions: how do these works complicate the concept of "human reproduction" as well as "motherhood"? Whether existing gender bias is challenged and gender relations re-imagined? How are men and women imagined to be empowered or disempowered by new bio-technologies? Whether and how new epistemologies of science and technology is presented? By answering these questions, this study aims to disclose the current
gendered textual politics of these works and elucidate the emerging feminist writing practices in contemporary Chinese science fiction.

主讲人

Dr. Xi Liu is an Assistant Professor in Chinese Literature at Department of China Studies at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. Her main research fields are modern and contemporary Chinese literature and women's studies. She also traces the genealogy of critical theories including post-structuralism, post-Marxist feminism and post-humanism as well as the application of them in the Chinese context.

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