Lecture: "Medicine, Exorcism and Female Sexualities in Medieval China", Harvard University, Cambridge MA, February 12, 2014

This lecture examines the new medical consciousness of women's sexual desire in 13th-century China; compares the diverse treatments for "women's (dreaming of) sexual intercourse with ghosts" as seen in medicine and exorcist rituals; and argues that attempts to pathologize women's (hetero-)  sexual inactivity were heterogeneous and self-inconsistent. New medical theories of female sexuality at this time were not simply incongruous with what were depicted in popular anecdotes but also in conflict with, instead of reinforcing, Confucian family ethics.