UQ lecture spotlights Chinese masculinity

Chinese masculinity — a popular focus for martial arts films — will be examined at a free public lecture at The University of Queensland this month.

Professor Kam Louie of UQ’s School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies will present the key findings of his new book Theorising Chinese Masculinity.

Professor Louie will be guest speaker at the lecture organised by the University’s Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies at Mayne Hall foyer, St Lucia on Thursday, April 18 at 5.30pm.

His discussion is part of a program of free public lectures by UQ Faculty of Arts researchers.

“While there is a vast Eurocentric scholarship on gender and sexuality, there has been little work on masculinity and the formation of male ideals in a Chinese context,” Professor Louie said.

He uses the concepts of wen (cultural attainment) and wu (martial valour) to explain how masculinity is constructed in China.

Professor Louie will trace these concepts in the 20th century by analysing the transformations undergone by traditional icons such as Confucius (the wen god) and Guan Yu (the wu god), as well as contemporary images such as Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. Though necessarily simplified, his work presents a picture of contemporary masculinities in China and the Chinese diaspora as a projection of new, globalised constructions of manhood.

Professor Louie is Professor of Chinese Studies at UQ. He has taught at Nanjing, Auckland and Murdoch Universities and studied at Sydney, Hong Kong Chinese and Peking Universities, publishing 10 books and numerous articles on Chinese culture.

Recent books include Chinese Literature in the Twentieth Century (with Bonnie McDougall) [Columbia University Press, 1997], The Politics of Chinese Language and Culture (with Bob Hodge) [Routledge, 1998] and Theorising Chinese Masculinity [Cambridge University Press, 2002].

His latest book Theorising Chinese Masculinity [Cambridge University Press, 2002], will be launched after the lecture by the Head of UQ’s School of Education, Professor Allan Luke at 7pm in the lower Mayne Hall foyer.

The Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies’ 2002 lecture program aims to promote the research culture of the arts and humanities, and showcase the diversity of research currently being undertaken within the fields of critical and cultural studies.

The lecture will be chaired by Centre director Professor Graeme Turner. The public lecture program is supported by the University of Queensland Press.

For further information, contact Ms Andrea Mitchell at the Centre For Critical and Cultural Studies (telephone 07 3365 7182, mobile 0412 474 978, Internet: http://www.arts.uq.edu.au/cccs/ or email: a.mitchell@uq.edu.au).