CfP: Feminism in China × Judith Butler12.12.2025 {en}
Over the past two years, our group has brought together scholars, students, and interested readers to explore key texts and debates in Chinese feminist history, activism, and theory. This semester, as we transition into a subgroup within the German Association for Asian Studies (DGA), and as both organizers are ready to explore new perspectives to understand Feminism in China, we are launching a new thematic focus: Feminism in China × Judith Butler.
Judith Butler is a leading figure in contemporary feminist and queer theory, best known for developing the concept of gender performativity, which argues that gender is not a fixed identity, but a repeated set of acts shaped by social norms.
Their work—especially Gender Trouble (1990)—challenged established feminist assumptions about the category “women” and opened new ways of thinking about embodiment, desire, and power. Drawing on Foucault, psychoanalysis, and post- structuralist philosophy, Butler reshaped debates on identity politics, vulnerability, and resistance. How might Butler’s interventions reshape or complicate our understanding of (Chinese) feminism? How should we integrate their critiques in exploring a new future for (Chinese) feminism?
For the six sessions of this semester, we will use the first four sessions on their Gender Trouble. For the last two, we will have one session on the reception/ application of their theory in Chinese Studies by Gail Hershatter, one on an intellectual debate in the late 90s between them and the critical theorist/ socialist feminist Nancy Fraser. Additionally, when the timing and opportunity fit, we will use one session or one extra session for an invited guest: Li Ran, PhD candidate in Comparative Literature and Intercultural Studies at Shanghai International Studies University, would talk about her research on the images of cyborg in contemporary Chinese science fiction through the lens of gender, specifically, by exploring how Donna Haraway’s cyborg theory is localized in China, and whether these images of cyborg offer new perspectives on gender issues in Chinese science fiction.
Participation
To participate, please check the dates, files in the google drive, and zoom links on the next page; if you are interested in following our group in general and would like to know our activities in future, please send an email to leshan.li@uni-heidelberg.de; qc19950721@hotmail.com. We will add you to our mailing list. It is encouraged to get in touch, since we might switch to DGA’s platform for future meetings in future. However, you don’t need our response to join our zoom meetings.
Program for this semester:
Time: By-weekly meetings starting from the 21st of November, Fridays, 13:30-15:30, Central European Time
21/11/2025: Butler, Judith. Gender trouble. Routledge, 2006. Chapter 1
05/12/2025: Butler, Judith. Gender trouble. Routledge, 2006. Chapter 2
19/12/2025: Butler, Judith. Gender trouble. Routledge, 2006. Chapter 3. pp.107-150
09/01/2026: Butler, Judith. Gender trouble. Routledge, 2006. Chapter 3. pp.151-193
23/01/2026:
Butler, Judith. „Merely cultural.“ Social Text, No. 52/53, Queer Transexions of Race, Nation, and Gender (Autumn – Winter, 1997), pp. 265-277
Fraser, Nancy, “Heterosexism, Misrecognition, and Capitalism – A Response to Judith Butler”, Social Text, No. 52/53, Queer Transexions of Race, Nation, and Gender (Autumn – Winter, 1997), pp. 279-289
06/02/2026: Hershatter, Gail. „Gender Trouble’s Afterlife in Chinese Studies.“ The Journal of Asian Studies 79, no. 4 (2020): 911-926.
Organizers
QI Chen is a Ph.D. student in the Institute of China Studies at the University of Freiburg. Her doctoral dissertation aims to evaluate the emancipatory potential of grassroots feminism in contemporary China. In general, she is interested in feminist philosophy, feminist theories and practices, labor issues and domestic violence.
LI Leshan is a Ph.D. student in Sinology at Heidelberg University. Her doctoral research explores the relationship between political culture and the production of legitimacy in modern and contemporary China, with a particular focus on performance, emotion, and state-society dynamics.
Call fo participants Feminism in China x Judith ButlerHerunterladen
