Speaker Bio

Huang Chih-Yen Debby obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania after receiving her BA and MA degrees at National Taiwan University. She is currently a NSTC Research Scholar at Academia Sinica, where she serves as principal investigator of a research project funded by the National Science and Technology Council, titled Empire of Pleasure: The Art of Governing and Being Governed in Eighth-Century China. Her research lies at the intersection of institutional, cultural, and gender history in medieval China, with a focus on gender relations, public performance of emotion, and the ways institutions both enable and constrain action while also generating political and social capital. She is the author of Princess Politics: A Gendered Investigation into the Political History of Early Medieval China (2013, in Chinese; simplified Chinese edition forthcoming) and has published widely in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. Her recent article on the transcultural reception of a Buddhist tale, accepted by the Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology (2026, in Chinese). She is currently completing More Than Friends: Gender, Space, and the Making of Intimacy in Medieval China, 3rd–7th Centuries, a monograph that reconstructs how elites negotiated intimacy, trust, and social distance at the moment of first encounter with their friends’ relatives, revealing an underlying emotional order that shaped early medieval sociability.

Recapping the Academic Lecture “Can Women Rule the State? Wu Zetian and Her Era” on 27 February 2026

On 27 February 2026, Dr. HUANG Chih-yen Debby of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, delivered a lecture at The Chinese University of Hong Kong entitled “Can Women Rule the State? Wu Zetian and Her Era.”  In her talk, Dr. HUANG examined the foundations of power that enabled Wu Zetian, the only female emperor in Chinese history, to rise to supreme authority, as well as the historical conditions that made her reign.

Dr. HUANG began her lecture with the political episode in which Princess Anle requested Emperor Zhongzong to appoint her as “Crown Princess,” a request that was ultimately rejected. Although Princess Anle cited Wu Zetian as a precedent, the speaker noted that she failed to grasp the unique sources of legitimacy that had underpinned Wu Zetian’s ascent. Wu Zetian’s authority rested on three crucial elements: first, her status as empress of Gaozong, which enabled the two to govern jointly as the “Two Saints”; second, the longstanding political tradition of empress dowagers serving as regents, which provided a culturally sanctioned pathway for women to exercise authority; and third, religious authority derived from Buddhist concepts such as the Chakravartin and the prophecy of Maitreya’s descent.

By contrast, Princess Anle focused solely on Wu Zetian’s visible success, overlooking the institutional and ideological foundations that had legitimized her rule. Dr. HUANG further observed that Wu Zetian’s decisions regarding imperial succession reveal the constraints of the patrilineal clan system. Although Wu made some breakthroughs in her succession methods, she did not fundamentally dismantle the patrilineal order; ultimately, she prioritized her biological descendants of the Li lineage over members of the Wu clan and restored the throne to Emperor Zhongzong.

Dr. HUANG concluded by emphasizing that although Wu Zetian ascended to the imperial throne, her political thinking remained rooted in a patrilineal framework. The absence of a second female emperor in the long course of Chinese history, she argued, underscores the deep structural limitations imposed by patriarchal institutions and ritual norms on gender roles in governance.