Libertine Masculinity: Homosexuality and Homosociality in Late Imperial Pornographic Fiction

Giovanni Vitiello, Associate Professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, University of Hawai'i

This presentation focuses on the figure of the male libertine in pornographic fiction to argue that the boundaries of his sexuality and masculinity were drawn and redrawn, and in the process significantly altered, from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries. While pointing at a shift in the representation of masculinity and male-male sexuality in fiction, these developments might also signal an attempt to meet the new moral and legal standards of the mid-Qing period. Professor Vitiello obtained a Laurea in Oriental Languages from the University of Rome, and MA and Ph.D. degrees in Chinese from the University of California at Berkeley. His research and publications focus on late imperial Chinese fiction and the history of sexuality. He has just completed a book manuscript by the title of "The Libertine's Friend: Homosexuality and Masculinity in Late Imperial China–1550-1850." He is currently Associate Professor of Chinese Literature at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.