Ellen Widmer
Mayling Soong Professor of Chinese Studies & Professor of East Asian Studies
I study traditional Chinese fiction, history of Chinese women's writing, history of the book in China, and missionaries to East Asia.
I have several research topics. Trained in the history of traditional Chinese fiction, I have worked hard to bring women into the picture. There were not many women who wrote fiction, but many consumed it as readers and wrote about it in their poetry. The great eighteenth-century novel Dream of the Red Chamber takes writing women as its subject and so blends these two streams of my work in another way. The history of the Chinese book is another area of specialization. My several studies of individual bookshops emerge from this interest. Finally I have written on the outreach of colleges like Wellesley and Wesleyan University in Middleton, Connecticut to Christian colleges in China, Japan, and Korea.
My teaching centers on the history of Chinese fiction and drama. Comparisons between Chinese and Japanese fiction are another teaching interest, as is Korean-American literature. I am trying to figure out the best way to bring a third interest, educational interchanges between American colleges and colleges in East Asia, into the realm of my teaching. A second plan for the future is to teach the history of China's women writers. Finally, I am working with colleagues in the department to devise core courses for the major. I may not teach these myself, but I will hope to have a voice in how they are structured and administered.
I am keenly interested in administration at the departmental level. Questions like how to combine Chinese, Japanese, and Korean in one department; how to help language and literature faculty interact with one another; how to adapt courses to reflect the changing profiles of East Asian countries --all these go into the mix of making Wellesley's available assets work to best advantage. As department chair I probably spend as much time thinking about such matters as I spend on my research and teaching.
Education
- B.A., Wellesley College
- M.A., Tufts University
- M.A., Harvard University
- Ph.D. or J.D., Harvard University
Current and upcoming courses
The period 1850-1950 witnessed five political revolutions in China. Each one had an impact on the status of women. By the end of the hundred years, the stay-at-home, bound-footed gentlewoman was no more, and old-style dreams in which women changed gender to pursue careers or fight wars had faded away. Instead a whole new reality for women had emerged. This course explores these changes through the writings of male sympathizers, western missionaries, and most importantly Chinese women themselves. In bridging the “late imperial” and “modern” eras and in its emphasis on women’s voices, it offers a distinctive take on the period under review. Although the story is Chinese, it is a part of women’s history worldwide.
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The period 1850-1950 witnessed five political revolutions in China. Each one had an impact on the status of women. By the end of the hundred years, the stay-at-home, bound-footed gentlewoman was no more, and old-style dreams in which women changed gender to pursue careers or fight wars had faded away. Instead a whole new reality for women had emerged. This course explores these changes through the writings of male sympathizers, western missionaries, and most importantly Chinese women themselves. In bridging the “late imperial” and “modern” eras and in its emphasis on women's voices, it offers a distinctive take on the period under review. Although the story is Chinese, it is a part of women's history worldwide.
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Variously known in English as Dream of the Red Chamber, A Dream of Red Mansions, and The Story of the Stone, Honglou meng is the most widely discussed Chinese novel of all time. Written in the mid-eighteenth century, the novel offers telling insight into Chinese culture as it once was and as it remains today. The novel is still wildly popular due to its tragic love story, its sensitive depiction of the plight of the talented woman in late imperial culture, and its narrative intricacies. The goal of the course is to understand the novel both as a literary text and as a cultural phenomenon. Optional extra sessions will accommodate those who wish to read and discuss the novel in Chinese.
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Variously known in English as Dream of the Red Chamber, A Dream of Red Mansions, and The Story of the Stone, Honglou meng is the most widely discussed Chinese novel of all time. Written in the mid-eighteenth century, the novel offers telling insight into Chinese culture as it once was and as it remains today. The novel is still wildly popular due to its tragic love story, its sensitive depiction of the plight of the talented woman in late imperial culture, and its narrative intricacies. The goal of the course is to understand the novel both as a literary text and as a cultural phenomenon. Optional extra sessions will accommodate those who wish to read and discuss the novel in Chinese. This course may be taken as CHIN 211 or, with additional assignments, as CHIN 311.