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Feminist Theories and Women Writers of Late Imperial China: Impact and Critique

Feminist Theories and Women Writers of Late Imperial China: Impact and Critique Feminism, feminist theory, feminist literary theory were already highly contentious in what they represented to Euro-American critics and theorists in the 1980s, when scholars in Chinese literary studies began sustained research on women writers in late imperial China (ca. 1600–1911). Their research drew on developments in Western feminist theories while problematizing certain applications. In this article, I review major debates in 1980s and 1990s Western feminist literary theory, divided by the different approaches of Anglo-American and French feminist critics and gender studies, examining why specific arguments on women and language, genres studied, and theoretical underpinnings did not hold significant relevance to the study of similar issues when applied to women's writing in pre-twentieth-century China. Yet certain concepts were highly fruitful in critical analysis. Feminist theory was never monolithic, even when it was Eurocentric; theories were drawn from a plurality of different disciplines and schools. Concepts that came into currency—gender, gaze, voice, agency, subjectivity, authorship, and so on—from poststructuralist, postcolonial, cultural, and film studies proved to be useful tools in feminist literary studies. Some came to be deployed in scholarship on women's literature in historical China. In this context, I reflect on theoretical approaches in significant studies of women's writing of late imperial China and consider the impact or critique this subfield of Chinese literary studies posed to Western feminist theories and broader questions of the applicability of modern/postmodern feminist theories to literature of earlier periods and other cultures before the globalization of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture Duke University Press

Feminist Theories and Women Writers of Late Imperial China: Impact and Critique

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Copyright
Copyright © 2022 by Duke University Press
ISSN
2329-0048
eISSN
2329-0056
DOI
10.1215/23290048-9681176
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Feminism, feminist theory, feminist literary theory were already highly contentious in what they represented to Euro-American critics and theorists in the 1980s, when scholars in Chinese literary studies began sustained research on women writers in late imperial China (ca. 1600–1911). Their research drew on developments in Western feminist theories while problematizing certain applications. In this article, I review major debates in 1980s and 1990s Western feminist literary theory, divided by the different approaches of Anglo-American and French feminist critics and gender studies, examining why specific arguments on women and language, genres studied, and theoretical underpinnings did not hold significant relevance to the study of similar issues when applied to women's writing in pre-twentieth-century China. Yet certain concepts were highly fruitful in critical analysis. Feminist theory was never monolithic, even when it was Eurocentric; theories were drawn from a plurality of different disciplines and schools. Concepts that came into currency—gender, gaze, voice, agency, subjectivity, authorship, and so on—from poststructuralist, postcolonial, cultural, and film studies proved to be useful tools in feminist literary studies. Some came to be deployed in scholarship on women's literature in historical China. In this context, I reflect on theoretical approaches in significant studies of women's writing of late imperial China and consider the impact or critique this subfield of Chinese literary studies posed to Western feminist theories and broader questions of the applicability of modern/postmodern feminist theories to literature of earlier periods and other cultures before the globalization of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Journal

Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture – Duke University Press

Published: Apr 1, 2022

References

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    Chang, Kang-i Sun
  • Liu Shih and Hsü Ts'an: Feminine or Feminist?
    Chang, Kang-i Sun Pauline Yu
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    Chang, Kang-i Sun Ellen Widmer Kang-i Sun Chang
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    Chang, Kang-i Sun
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    Furth, Charlotte Kwang-ching Liu
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    Hawkes, David
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    Idema, Wilt L. Joan Judge Hu Ying
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    Kroll, Paul W.
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    Lean, Eugenia
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    Li, Xiaorong
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    Mulvey, Laura
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    Owen, Stephen Shuen-fu Lin Stephen Owen
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    Robertson, Maureen Ellen Widmer Kang-i Sun Chang
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    Robertson, Maureen
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    Showalter, Elaine Mary Jacobus
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    Teng, Emma
  • Illusion and Illumination: A New Poetics of Seeing in Liang Dynasty Court Literature
    Tian, Xiaofei
  • Life and Letters: Reflections on Tanyangzi
    Waltner, Ann Joan Judge Hu Ying
  • Feminism in the Age of Digital Archives: The Women Writers Project
    Wernimont, Jacqueline Julia Flanders
  • The Epistolary World of Female Talent in Seventeenth-Century China
    Widmer, Ellen
  • Honglou meng ying in Biographical and Literary Perspectives
    Widmer, Ellen
  • The Poetry of Li Ch'ing-chao: A Woman Author and Women's Authorship
    Wixted, John Timothy Pauline Yu
  • Description of Landscape in Early Six Dynasties Poetry
    Chang, Kang-i Sun Shuen-fu Lin Stephen Owen
  • Gender and Canonicity: Ming Qing Women Poets in the Eyes of the Male Literati
    Chang, Kang-i Sun
  • Liu Shih and Hsü Ts'an: Feminine or Feminist?
    Chang, Kang-i Sun Pauline Yu
  • Ming and Qing Anthologies of Women's Poetry and Their Selection Strategies
    Chang, Kang-i Sun Ellen Widmer Kang-i Sun Chang
  • Ming-Qing Women Poets and Cultural Androgyny
    Chang, Kang-i Sun
  • Engendering the Lyric: Her Image and Voice in Song
    Fong, Grace S Pauline Yu
  • Writing Self and Writing Lives: Shen Shanbao's (1808–1802) Gendered Auto/Biographical Practices
    Fong, Grace S
  • ‘Beyond’ Gynocriticism and Gynesis: The Geographics of Identity and the Future of Feminist Criticism
    Friedman, Susan S
  • The Patriarch's Legacy: Household Instructions and the Transmission of Orthodox Values
    Furth, Charlotte Kwang-ching Liu
  • Xi Peilan
    Hawkes, David
  • The Biographical and Autobiographical in Bo Shaojun's One Hundred Poems Lamenting My Husband
    Idema, Wilt L. Joan Judge Hu Ying
  • Writing the Body: Towards an Understanding of l'Ecriture Feminine
    Jones, Ann Rosalind
  • After Long Years: Reading The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature
    Kroll, Paul W.
  • . . . Fair and Yet Not Fond
    Kroll, Paul W.
  • Reflections on Theory, Gender, and the Psyche in the Study of Chinese History
    Lean, Eugenia
  • Engendering Heroism: Women's Song Lyrics Written to the Tune Man Jiang Hong
    Li, Xiaorong
  • Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
    Mulvey, Laura
  • The Self's Perfect Mirror: Poetry as Autobiography
    Owen, Stephen Shuen-fu Lin Stephen Owen
  • Changing the Subject: Gender and Self-Inscription in Authors’ Prefaces and Shi Poetry
    Robertson, Maureen Ellen Widmer Kang-i Sun Chang
  • Voicing the Feminine: Constructions of the Gendered Subject in Lyric Poetry by Women of Medieval and Late Imperial China
    Robertson, Maureen
  • Toward a Feminist Poetics
    Showalter, Elaine Mary Jacobus
  • The Construction of the ‘Traditional Chinese Woman’ in the Western Academy: A Critical Review
    Teng, Emma
  • Illusion and Illumination: A New Poetics of Seeing in Liang Dynasty Court Literature
    Tian, Xiaofei
  • Life and Letters: Reflections on Tanyangzi
    Waltner, Ann Joan Judge Hu Ying
  • Feminism in the Age of Digital Archives: The Women Writers Project
    Wernimont, Jacqueline Julia Flanders
  • The Epistolary World of Female Talent in Seventeenth-Century China
    Widmer, Ellen
  • Honglou meng ying in Biographical and Literary Perspectives
    Widmer, Ellen
  • The Poetry of Li Ch'ing-chao: A Woman Author and Women's Authorship
    Wixted, John Timothy Pauline Yu