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., Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
- M.A., Harvard University
- Ph.D., Harvard University
Current and upcoming courses
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.
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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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The Ming (1368) was a glorious dynasty, and its fall was “heard round the world." The course approaches its glory and fall through novels (such as The Water Margin and The Plum in a Golden Vase), short stories (by Feng Menglong and others), and dramas like Peach Blossom Fan. Elsewhere in East Asia, too, the Ming was a theme in literature, especially at the time of its fall. Works by Chikamatsu (Japanese) and Ho Kyun (Korean) serve as illustrations. Additionally, dramas from Holland and England provide some measure of the impact of this event in Europe. In the last third of the course we will survey this group of writings by non-Chinese and use them to show how reactions varied, depending on the nationality of the observer. Finally, we will read a Cantonese opera composed in the twentieth century. It is one sign of the topic's continuing currency throughout the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), and it highlights south China's longstanding resistance to the Qing.
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The Ming (1368) was a glorious dynasty, and its fall was “heard round the world." The course approaches its glory and fall through novels (such as The Water Margin and The Plum in a Golden Vase), short stories (by Feng Menglong and others), and dramas like Peach Blossom Fan. Elsewhere in East Asia, too, the Ming was a theme in literature, especially at the time of its fall. Works by Chikamatsu (Japanese) and Ho Kyun (Korean) serve as illustrations. Additionally, dramas from Holland and England provide some measure of the impact of this event in Europe. In the last third of the course we will survey this group of writings by non-Chinese and use them to show how reactions varied, depending on the nationality of the observer. Finally, we will read a Cantonese opera composed in the twentieth century. It is one sign of the topic's continuing currency throughout the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), and it highlights south China's longstanding resistance to the Qing.