Gender and Subjectivities in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature and Culture

Through both cultural and literary analysis, this book examines gender in relation to late Qing and modern Chinese intellectuals, including Mu Shiying, Bai Wei, and Lu Xun. Tackling important, previously neglected questions, Zhu ultimately shows the resilience and malleability of Chinese modernity through its progressive views on femininity.

Zhu's monograph makes an important and original contribution to the study of modern Chinese literature and culture. It shows how our understanding of a field can be enriched by the inclusion of a wider range of texts and by the extension of our scholarly foci. It further contributes to our understanding of the history of modern Chinese culture as transnational. (Yi Zheng, MCLC Resource Center, u.osu.edu, February, 2017)

This is a lucidly written book. Its theoretical and methodological approach pays homage to a range of theories and studies but it succeeds in providing a unique and illuminating study of issues surrounding Chinese modernity from the perspective of the 'feminine at large.' More specifically, this study successfully demonstrates the usefulness of the conception of 'the feminine' in understanding male subjectivities. (Xueping Zhong, Frontiers ofLiterary Studies in China, Vol. 10 (1), April, 2016)

Autorentext
Ping Zhu is Assistant Professor of Chinese at the University of Oklahoma, USA.

Inhalt
Introduction: The Feminine at Large 1. The Empowered Feminine: Gender, Racial and Nationalist Discourses 2. The Anamorphic Feminine: History, Memory, and Woman in Lu Xun's Writings 3. The Affective Feminine: Mourning Women and the New Nationalist Subject 4. The Cosmopolitan Feminine: The Modern Girl and Her Male Other in the New-Sensationalist Fiction 5. The Revolutionary Feminine: The Transformation of "Women's Literature" Conclusion: The Feminine and Early Chinese Feminism