Cheuk Yee Wai 衞婥怡

College:

Wolfson College

Course and Supervisor:

DPhil Oriental Studies. Supervised by Professor Tian Yuan Tan.

Contact:

cheukyee.wai@humanities.ox.ac.uk

Educational Background:

2015-2017: MPhil in Gender Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

2010-2013: BA in Religious Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Research Interests:

My general research interests revolve around representations of the erotic, females, and taboos. I began studying late imperial Chinese erotic fictions for my MPhil thesis, in which I investigated the images of Buddhist monks in selected erotic fiction. For my DPhil thesis, I have shifted my focus to the representation of female bodies and female inter-relationships, in particular to the stereotypes of women from different background, and the instability of their relationship irrespective to their presumed social status. Beyond my doctoral research, I am looking forward to further explore the topic of sexuality, female's everyday life, and the understanding of menstruation in pre-modern China.

Thesis title:

Sisters in Crime: Women and illicit sexual affairs in late imperial Chinese erotic fiction

Recent Publications and/or Conferences:

Presentation on “Reading Maidservants in the Imperial Chinese Erotic Novel Langshi” in the Talking Bodies 2023 Conference (University of Chester, 13th June, 2023).

Presentation on “Sex life of pre-modern Chinese maidservants” in the British Association of Chinese Studies 2022 Conference (University of Oxford, 31st August, 2022).

Presentation on “Sleeping with Mothers: Mother characters in Ming and Qing Erotic Fictions” in the 2019 International Conference on Ming-Qing Studies (Academia Sinica, Taiwan, 29th August, 2019).

Presentation on “Libertine Monks and Women: Sexual Fantasies in Late Imperial Chinese Vernacular Erotica” in the University of Oxford China Humanities Graduate Conference 2017: Extra(ordinary) China: Practices of the Everyday (University of Oxford, UK, 11th January, 2017).

Silhouette in place of missing photograph