Join us for the Late Imperial China Lecture Series!
Yvon Wang, University of Toronto, “Desperate (Magi)strates: A Preliminary Look at Officials' Suicides in the Qing”
Abstract: Using dynastic records and investigation memoranda, this talk explores the suicidal deaths of relatively elite men in 17th-18th century China. Juxtaposing these men's deaths against the well-documented stories of women commemorated in the Qing “chastity cult,” I note how suicides of both elite men and chaste heroines both became opportunities to promote the dynasty’s moral authority and deepen its claims to legitimacy, while simultaneously raising thorny questions about agency and moral interiority. Officials' deaths by suicide revealed legal, moral, and epistemological contradictions at the core of Qing imperial bureaucracy--as well as the vulnerability of even well-heeled, educated men in a hierarchical society with few social safety nets.
This is co-sponsored event by the East Asia Center and Corcoran Department of History!