Woman As Symptom: Female Subjectivity and Chinese Patriliny

Pomona College presents a talk with Professor Steven Sangren of Cornell University on the issue of gender in Chinese culture.

It is widely supposed, both by Chinese and by foreign observers, that Chinese culture devalues women because China is patriarchal – that is, because men have power. This paper complicates this understanding by proposing in addition that China is patriarchal because Chinese patriliny, understood as what I term “instituted fantasy,” obviates women as subjects. Drawing inspiration both from classic psychoanalytic theory (Freud and Lacan) and more recent elaborations (Butler, Zizek), I argue that women, especially their reproductive powers and sexuality, constitute an unassimilable irritant for patriliny, an irritant or symptom that manifests widely in, for example, ancestor worship, ethnobiological theories, mythic narratives, family dynamics, and funerary rituals.

About the Speaker
P. Steven Sangren is Professor of Anthropology and Asian Studies at Cornell University. Professor Sangren received his B.A. from Princeton University and (after three years' service in the United States Navy) his Ph.D. from Stanford University. His work focuses on Chinese culture and society-especially, gender, religion, and mythic narrative. Drawing inspiration from Marxian and psychoanalytic traditions he aspires to understand how culture accommodates desire. He is author of History and Magical Power in a Chinese Community (Stanford UP) and Chinese Sociologics (Athlone).  His current project, tentatively entitled Filial Obsessions, is an analysis and critique of Chinese patriliny and gender ideology.