Zhang Jingsheng (sexologist)

Zhang Jingsheng (1888–1970) was a Chinese intellectual, aesthetician, author, and sexologist. He is remembered as one of the first academics in Chinese history to openly discuss sex. He is known as China's "Dr Sex."[1]

Zhang Jingsheng
Zhang Jingsheng.
Born1888
Raoping County, Guangdong Province
Died1970
NationalityChinese
Occupation(s)Author, publisher, and sexologist

Family and early life

Zhang Jingsheng was born into a poor family in Raoping County, Guangdong Province in 1888.[2]

From 1912 to 1920 he studied in France earning a bachelor's degree in liberal arts and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Lyon.[1]

Career

After returning to China from France he taught at the Shantou Jinshan Middle School in Guangdong. In 1921 he was offered a teaching position at Peking University by Cai Yuanpei which put him at the very heart of the May Fourth movement.[1]

Much of his work, both academic and professional, was regarded as tawdry or profane by Chinese conservatives and these forces were particularly powerful in Beijing. Zhang Jingsheng came under such fierce personal and professional attack that he attempted suicide by poison in 1932.[3]

Over the course of his career he published books on science, medicine, philosophy, agronomy, logic, sociology, and literature. Zhang Jingsheng's translation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions was one of the most popular translations of its time in China.[2][4]

Published works
  • Sexual history (1926)

Biographies
  • Sex, Eugenics, Aesthetics, Utopia in the Life and Work of Zhang Jingsheng (1888-1970) by Leon Antonio Rocha, 2010.[5]

References
  1. Kevin P. Murphy, Jennifer M. Spear and (2011). Historicising Gender and Sexuality. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1444343939.
  2. Wang, Jing M. (2008). When "I" was Born: Women's Autobiography in Modern China. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0299225100.
  3. Wang, Y. Yvon (2014). "Whorish Representation: Pornography, Media, and Modernity in Fin-de-siècle Beijing". Modern China. 40 (4). doi:10.1177/0097700413499732. S2CID 145020855.
  4. Rocha, Leon (2019). "A Small Business of Sexual Enlightenment: Zhang Jingsheng's "Beauty Bookshop", Shanghai 1927-1929". British Journal of Chinese Studies. 9 (2): 1–30. doi:10.51661/bjocs.v9i2.35. S2CID 210487833. Retrieved 19 September 2019.
  5. Antonio Rocha, Leon (2010). Sex, Eugenics, Aesthetics, Utopia in the Life and Work of Zhang Jingsheng (1888-1970). University of Cambridge.
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