Date: Tuesday April 15, 2025

Time: 6:00 PM

Zoom: 999 5172 1330

Speaker: Margaret Hillenbrand, Professor of modern Chinese literature and visual culture at the University of Oxford

Abstract

This paper explores the cultural politics of the cosmetological industry in China via the growing entrenchment of what I call fixed facial templates: the practice of producing near-identical faces via surgery, treatments and tweakments. I zero in on one hyper-dominant template: that of the so-called “internet celebrity face” or wanghonglian网红脸. Ubiquitous across China’s social media ecosystem, female wanghong project a persona which is appealing but also aesthetically exacting: groomed, cute, immaculate. Although this is a persona shaped by total habitus – physique, style, mannerisms, diction, vocal tone – it’s also powerfully centered on the face, or rather on a fixed facial template whose main traits are a pointed chin, straight brows, double eyelids, and a high-bridged nose. In this talk, I explore the spread of this facial template and the volatile social reactions that it stirs.

Bio

Margaret Hillenbrand is a professor of modern Chinese literature and visual culture at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on literary and visual studies in contemporary China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.