Women Through the Lens : Gender and Nation in a Century of Chinese Cinema

__Women Through the Lens__ raises the question of how gender, especially the image of woman, acts as a visual and discursive sign in the creation of the nation-state in twentieth-century China. Tracing the history of Chinese cinema through the last hundred years from the perspective of transnational feminism, Shuqin Cui reveals how women have been granted a "privileged visibility" on screen while being denied discursive positions as subjects. In addition, her careful attention to the visual language system of cinema shows how "woman" has served as the site for the narration of nation in the context of China's changing social and political climate. Placing gender and nation in a historical framework, the book first shows how early productions had their roots in shadow plays, a popular form of public entertainment. In examining the "Red Classics" of socialist cinema as a mass cultural form, the book shows how the utopian vision of emancipating the entire proletariat, women included, produced a collective ideology that declared an end to gender difference. Cui then documents and discusses the cinematic spectacle of woman as essential to such widely popular films as Chen Kaige's "Farewell My Concubine" and Zhang Yimou's "Ju Do." Finally, the author brings a feminist perspective to the issues of gender and nation by turning her attention to women directors and their self-representations.

In this rich and absorbing analysis of the transformation of political thought in nineteenth-century Japan, Douglas Howland examines the transmission to Japan of key concepts - liberty, rights, sovereignty, and society - from Western Europe and the United States. Because Western political concepts did not translate well into their language, Japanese had to invent terminology to engage Western political thought. This work of westernization served to structure historical agency as Japanese leaders undertook the creation of a modern state.

Where scholars have previously treated the introduction of Western political thought to Japan as a simple migration of ideas from one culture to another, Howland undertakes an unprecedented integration of the history of political concepts and the semiotics of translation techniques. He demonstrates that Japanese efforts to translate the West must be understood as problems both of language and action–as the creation and circulation of new concepts and the usage of these new concepts in debates about the programs and policies to be implemented in a westernizing Japan.

Translating the West will interest scholars of East Asian studies and translation studies and historians of political thought, liberalism, and modernity.

Contents Acknowledgments Introduction PART ONE: EARLY PRODUCTION 1. From Shadow-Play to a National Cinema 2. Reconstructing History: The (Im)possible Engagement between Feminism and Postmodernism in Stanley Kwan’s Center Stage PART TWO: SOCIALIST CINEMA 3. Constructing and Consuming the Revolutionary Narratives 4. Gender Politics and Socialist Discourse in Xie Jin’s The Red Detachment of Women PART THREE: THE NEWWAVE 5. Screening China: National Allegories and International Receptions 6. The Search for Male Masculinity and Sexuality in Zhang Yimou’s Ju Dou 7. Subjected Body and Gendered Identity: Female Impersonation in Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine PART FOUR: WOMEN’S FILMS 8. Feminism with Chinese Characteristics? 9. Desire in Difference: Female Voice and Point of View in Hu Mei’s Army Nurse 10. Transgender Masquerading in Huang Shuqin’s Human,Woman, Demon Postscript Filmography Notes Works Cited Index "Women Through the Lens raises the question of how gender, especially the image of woman, acts as a visual and discursive sign in the creation of the nation-state in twentieth-century China. Tracing the history of Chinese cinema through the last hundred years from the perspective of transnational feminism, Shuqin Cui reveals how women have been granted a "privileged visibility" on-screen while being denied discursive positions as subjects. In addition, her careful attention to the visual language system of cinema shows how "woman" has served as the site for the narration of nation in the context of China's changing social and political climate." "Women Through the Lens will appeal to scholars and students in the fields of film, gender, and Asian studies, and to general readers interested in Chinese cinema."--BOOK JACKET. Part I. Early production. From shadow-play to a national cinema ; Reconstructing history: the (im)possible engagement between feminism and postmodernism in Stanley Kwan's Center stage -- Part II. Socialist cinema. Constructing and consuming the revolutionary narratives ; Gender politics and socialist discourse in Xie Jin's The red detachment of women -- Part III. The new wave. Screening China: national allegories and international receptions ; The search for male masculinity and sexuality in Zhang Yimou's Ju dou ; Subjected body and gendered identity: female impersonation in Chen Kaige's Farewell my concubine -- Part IV. Women's films. Feminism with Chinese characteristics? ; Desire in difference: female voice and point of view in Hu Mei's Army nurse ; Transgender masquerading in Huang Shuqin's Human, woman, demon