Factory Girls: Reporting Among the Working Women of China and Egypt

Leslie T. Chang has reported among female factory workers in diverse parts of the developing world for more than a decade.

Her first book, Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China, traces the stories of two young women over the course of three years as they attempt to rise from the assembly lines of Dongguan, an industrial city in China’s Pearl River Delta. Her newest project explores the lives of women working in two garment factories in Egypt, one near Alexandria and the other in rural Upper Egypt.

Chang will talk about the cultural, historical, religious, and economic factors that shape these women’s lives in such fundamentally different ways, along with the universality of their struggles for financial stability and personal fulfillment.

Followed by comments from Deborah Amos (Ferris Professor of Journalism), Erin Y. Huang (East Asian Studies and Comparative Literature), and Shaun Marmon (Religion) and group discussion. Moderated by Stephen F. Teiser (Religion).

A light dinner will be served. PLEASE NOTE: We are no longer taking RSVPs for this event. It is full.

Co-sponsored by the Humanities Council’s Ferris Seminars in Journalism, Paul and Marcia Wythes Center on Contemporary China, and Near Eastern Studies Department