Siyen Fei
Assistant Professor of History
Siyen Fei received her PhD degree from Stanford University in 2004. She teaches and researches Chinese history with an emphasis on the social and cultural developments during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and special interests in urban and gender issues.
Her first book (published by National Taiwan University in 1998) studies the so-called chastity cult in late imperial China, which was evinced in the surging number of records of chaste women. It begins with an inquiry into how these womens stories became well known to the public at a time when the only appropriate space for women was in the inner quarters. It further explores the specific social and cultural mechanisms that made this ideology of chastity dominant in shaping womens lives. It concludes that these two questions were, in fact, two sides of the same story. The very institutional, ritual, and oral story-telling channels that informed writings about chaste women also functioned as semi-mass media in pre-modern settings, filling peoples everyday lives with an endless stream of stories about chaste women, thereby generating individual aspirations and familial expectations.
Her current research continues to reflect an interest in the intricate interactions between representations and social reality and focuses on the formation of urban space in 16th and 17th century China, specifically the city of Nanjing. One central paradox informs the study: how, in the only dynasty that defined cities administratively as an extension of the countryside despite significant commercialization and urbanization, did the people of Nanjing experience, perceive, and (re)build their own city? She approaches this question by exploring three movements at the turn of seventeenth century: the concentrated publications of written and visual representations of Nanjing by a close-knit group of literati; a popular protest against building city walls in neighboring counties under the name of guarding Nanjing; and a grass-roots drive for urban corve reform that reconfigured the spatial structure of Nanjing city. These movements, led by Nanjing elites, county gentry, and urban residents, reveal the ways in which these social groups perceived and experienced Nanjing: its cultural representations, social boundaries, and spatial make-up. This study of late Ming Nanjing intends to challenge modern assumptions about cities that are embedded in pre-modern Chinese urban historiography as well as further our understanding of pre-modern urban space.
Courses Taught (As Schedule Allows)
For current course listings, consult the Course Directory.
- HIST 096 Late Imperial China
- HIST 097 China in the 20th Century
- HIST 206 Cities in Chinese History
- HIST 206 History of Private Life in China
