Women’s Literary Feminism in Twentieth-Century China

This Is A Critical Inquiry Into The Connections Between Emergent Feminist Ideologies In China And The Production Of Modern Women's Writing From The Demise Of The Last Imperial Dynasty To The Founding Of The People's Republic Of China. It Accentuates Both Well-known And Under-represented Literary Voices From Qiu Jin And Lu Yin To Bai Wein, Who Intervened In The Gender Debates Of Their Generation As Well As Contextualizes The Strategies Used In Imagining Alternative Stories Of Female Experience And Potential. It Asks Two Questions: First, How Did The Advent Of Enlightened Views Of Gender Relations And Sexuality Influence Literary Practices Of New Women In Terms Of Narrative Forms And Strategies, Readership, And Publication Venues? Second, How Do These Representations Attest To The Way These Female Intellectuals Engaged And Expanded Social And Political Concerns From The Personal To The National? Introduction: Women And Feminism In The Literary History Of Early Twentieth-century China. -- National Imaginaries: Feminist Fantasies At The Turn Of The Century. -- The New Woman's Women. -- Love And/or Revolution?: Fictions Of The Feminine Self In The 1930s Cultural Left. -- Outwitting Patriarchy: Comic Narrative Strategies In The Works Of Yang Jiang, Su Qing, And Zhang Ailing. -- A World Still To Winches Amy D. Dooling. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [245]-263) And Index.

This is a critical inquiry into the connections between emergent feminist ideologies in China and the production of 'modern' women's writing from the demise of the last imperial dynasty to the founding of the PRC. It accentuates both well-known and under-represented literary voices who intervened in the gender debates of their generation as well as contextualises the strategies used in imagining alternative stories of female experience and potential. It asks two questions: first, how did the advent of enlightened views of gender relations and sexuality influence literary practices of 'new women' in terms of narrative forms and strategies, readership, and publication venues? Second, how do these representations attest to the way these female intellectuals engaged and expanded social and political concerns from the personal to the national?

Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction: Women and Feminism in the Literary History of Early Twentieth-Century China....Pages 1-33 National Imaginaries: Feminist Fantasies at the Turn of the Century....Pages 35-64 The New Woman’s Women....Pages 65-102 Love and/or Revolution?: Fictions of the Feminine Self in the 1930s Cultural Left....Pages 103-135 Outwitting Patriarchy: Comic Narrative Strategies in the Works of Yang Jiang, Su Qing, and Zhang Ailing....Pages 137-169 A World Still to Win....Pages 171-200 Back Matter....Pages 201-273 A critical enquiry into the connections between emergent feminist ideologies in China & the production of 'modern' women's writing, from the demise of the last imperial dynasty to the founding of the People's Republic