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UID:pretalx-wha-annual-meeting-korea-2026-XU8FXG@pretalx.com
DTSTART;TZID=KST:20260626T111500
DTEND;TZID=KST:20260626T113500
DESCRIPTION:This paper centers on a sensational gossip story that was circu
 lated in the Shanghai daily "Shibao" in 1930: an elopement and falling out
  between a the daughter of minor warlords Zhao Hengti and her father’s g
 igolo that resulted in the latter’s suicide. Given the dearth of corrobo
 rating evidence for such a spectacular event\, I suggest this tawdry episo
 de should be understood as a moral fable aimed to critique warlord excess 
 and lament the disintegration of the Confucian family. What mattered was l
 ess the truth of the affair than its plausibility for a public eager to le
 arn of domestic degeneracy in warlord families that matched the general pe
 rception of political corruption.\nThis episode does not only constitute a
  rich text wherein questions of masculinity\, generational authority\, and
  political legitimacy were negotiated in Warlord China. It echoes other st
 ereotypes of the period’s larger-than-life figures\, such as Christian G
 eneral Feng Yuxiang\, who supposedly baptized his soldiers with a firehose
 \, or Dogmeat General Zhang Zongchang\, whose supposed ignorance over the 
 specifics of his army were legendary. Examining the lives\, gossip\, and s
 ources surrounding Feng\, Zhang\, and Zhao (and their reputations) illustr
 ates the manner in which much ‘history’ about this period in modern Ch
 inese history is based on mere innuendo\, and encourages responsible histo
 rians to reexamine their preconceived notions of how the era truly functio
 ned.
DTSTAMP:20260412T140205Z
LOCATION:Room 302 (Seats 48)
SUMMARY:The Warlord\, His Daughter\, and His Gigolo: Media\, Morality and M
 ythmaking in Early 20th Century China - Jonathan Tang
URL:https://pretalx.com/wha-annual-meeting-korea-2026/talk/XU8FXG/
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