Title: Empress Dowager Cixi and Late Imperial China
Lecturer: Marianne Bastid-Bruguière (Member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, the Society for Asian Studies, the Academia Europaea)
Chairperson: ZHANG Jishun (Fellow ofSi-mian Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities, East China Normal University)
Date: 3 pm, November 25th, 2015 (Wednesday)
Venue: Room 5303, Building of School of Humanities, Minhang Campus, ECNU
Sponsor: Si-mian Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities, ECNU
Abstract of the Lecture:
This lecture will explore why there are all kinds of different images, understanding and evaluation of Empress Dowager Cixi in popular and academic books from the late qing dynasty. From the original historical resources, most narratives of empress dowager cixi’s characters, habits and her daily life and pictures are about her old age. In spite of this, people still regarded her characters in the old age as inherent features. If we analysis resources about Cixi from 1861 to 1894 and those after 1895, it is still difficult to support the view that empress dowager Cixi made a significant contribution to the national sovereignty, feminist issues and China’s modernization in late Qing dynasty. However, in her old age, she absorbed and used the new way of globalization to promote and support her rule in China.
Brief Introduction of the Lecturer:
Marianne Bastid-Bruguière was born on 13 November 1940. She is a graduate of the Ecole Nationale des Langues et Civilisations Orientales and Peking University. From 1969, she has worked for the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. She has also taught at the Institut d'études politiques de Strasbourg, the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris Diderot University, Harvard University, Seikei University, the University of London, and the University of Kyoto. She is a member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, the Society for Asian Studies, the Academia Europaea. From 1992 to 1996, she was President of the Association Européenne d'Etudes Chinoises. She has received honorary PhDs from the Russian Academy of Sciences and the University of Aberdeen. In April 2010, she was named Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur.