CHI 320 Gender Politics in Chinese Literature (proposed)
Gender relations and the representation of women and sexuality in Chinese literature will be the focus of
this course. Some specific topics include how eroticism, cross-dressing and foot binding intersect with
Confucian ideology and social hierarchy in traditional society; how the utopian desire for modernity and
the imagined communities is projected onto the images of the New Woman (xin nuxing) and Westernized
Modern Girl (modeng nulang); and how women writers across times intervene within the constraints of
the political and social contexts and actively participate in cultural production and consumption. We will
take an interdisciplinary, multimedia approach to gender relations across different historical moments, and
critically engage such topics as the complicated relationships between women’s issues and national
discourse, between identity and performance, between the construction of female subjectivity and male
fantasy, between gender and genre. Students will be encouraged to conduct cross-genre and cross-cultural
comparisons. All readings will be in English. No prerequisite knowledge of Chinese language or culture is
required.
Student Learning Outcomes:

A detailed insight into Chinese literature in general and literary narrative in particular, spanning
the late imperial period all the way to the present.

An overview of the characteristics and complexities of Chinese culture and society.

Mastery of basic analytical terms relevant to the study of gender issues

Enhanced verbal, analytical and writing skills
Copy of syllabus for course as it will be taught under A&S 300-002 during Fall 2004
A&S 300-002
Gender Politics in Chinese Literature
Time: M/W 2:00pm-3:15pm, Fall 2004.
Location: 245 Classroom Building
Instructor: Shengqing Wu
Office:
Office Hour: M/W 3:30pm to 4:30pm & by appointment
Email:
Course Description:
Gender relations and the representation of women and sexuality in Chinese literature will be the focus of
this course. Some specific topics include how eroticism, cross-dressing and foot binding intersect with
Confucian ideology and social hierarchy in traditional society; how the utopian desire for modernity and
the imagined communities is projected onto the images of the New Woman (xin nuxing) and Westernized
Modern Girl (modeng nulang); and how women writers across times intervene within the constraints of
the political and social contexts and actively participate in cultural production and consumption. We will
take an interdisciplinary, multimedia approach to gender relations across different historical moments, and
critically engage such topics as the complicated relationships between women’s issues and national
discourse, between identity and performance, between the construction of female subjectivity and male
fantasy, between gender and genre. Students will be encouraged to conduct cross-genre and cross-cultural
comparisons. All readings will be in English. No prerequisite knowledge of Chinese language or culture is
required.
Course Requirements:
All students must attend classes regularly and finish readings before class.
There will be some writing assignments, two take-home exams and several oral presentations:
1. Two take-home exams. The essay questions will be due on Oct.18th and Dec. 14th.
2. One 5-7 page paper. The topic discussed in the paper must relate to the course content. The short paper
will be due on Nov. 15th.
3. Final paper. Students are asked to write a 12-15-page research paper (including endnotes and
bibliography). The final paper could be partially based on your short paper. Due on Dec. 14th.
4. One page short writing assignments. Students will be asked to write 3 or 4 one page short papers
throughout the semester. You will get credit as long as you turn in your assignment on time.
5. Students will be asked to give one or two oral presentations on the secondary reading materials. The
oral presentation will not be graded.
Grading and Evaluation:
Class participation and performance: 20%
One 5-page papers and short assignments: 20%
Two take-home exams: 30%
Final paper: 30%
Grading will be based on the following standard correlation between letter grades and numerical
percentages: 90-100=A, 80-89=B, 70-79=C, 60-69=D, less than 60=E.
Required Texts:
Course Readers.
Course Schedule and Readings:
8/25 Introduction to the Course.
Film Viewing: Raise the Red Lantern, dir. by Zhang Yimou, 1991.
Week 1
8/30 Gender as an Analytic Tool
Readings: Joan W. Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” American Historical
Review Vol. 91 No.5, 1986, pp. 1053-75.
Ban Zhao, Excerpts from Lessons for a Woman.
9/1 General Introduction to Women in Chinese Society
Reading: Patricia Ebrey, “Women, Marriage, and the Family in Chinese History,” Heritage of China:
Contemporary Prospective on Chinese Civilization, ed. Paul S. Ropp, University of California Press,
1990, pp. 197-223.
Week 2
9/6 NO CLASS.
9/8 Foot Binding in China (I)
Reading: Wang Ping, one chapter from Aching for Beauty: Footbinding in China, University of
Minnesota Press, 2002, pp. 29-53.
Week 3
9/13 Foot Binding in China (II)
Reading: Dorothy Ko, one chapter from Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in 17th
Century China, Stanford University Press, 1994, pp.179-218.
Li Ruzhen, Excerpts from The Romance of the Flowers in the Mirror.
9/15 Cross-dressing in Literature
Video Clips: Mulan, Disney Animation, 1998.
Readings: “The Ballad of Mulan” & Stories from Liaozai zhiyi: Miss Yan
Sufen Sophia Lai, “From Cross-dressing Daughter to Lady Knight-Errant” in Presence and Presentation:
Women in the Chinese Literati Tradition, ed. Sherry Mon, New York, 1999, pp. 77-107.
Week 4
9/20 Cross-dressing in Chinese Theater
Video Clips: Beijing Opera.
Reading: Joshua Goldstein, “Mei Lanfang and the Nationalization of Peking Opera, 1912-1930,”
Positions 7:2, 377-420.
9/22 The Issue of Emotion and Eroticism
Reading: “The Pearl Shirt Reencountered” in Traditional Chinese Stories: Themes and Variations, ed.
Y.W. Ma, Boston: Cheng & Tsui Company.
Week 5
9/27 Homosexuality in Literature
Reading: Sophie Volpp, “Classifying Lust: The Seventeenth-century Vogue for Male Love”, HJAS, Vol.
61, No.1, 2001.
9/29 Homosexuality in Literature II
Reading: Li Yu, Excerpts from Silent Opera & A Tower for the Summer Hear.
Week 6
10/4 Writing Women in Late Imperial China I
Readings: Susan Mann, Precious Records: Women in China’s Long 18th Century, Stanford University
Press, 1997, pp. 77-120.
Excerpts from Women Writers of Traditional China, ed. King-I Sun Chang, Stanford University Press,
1999.
10/6 Writing Women in Late Imperial China II: The Case of He Shuangqing
Reading: Paul Ropp, Banished Immortal: Search for Shuangqing, University of Michigan Press, 2002,
81-110.
Week 7
10/11 Ghostliness and Femininity (I)
Readings: Judith Zeitlin, “Embodying the disembodied: Representations of Ghosts and the Feminine in
Writing Women in late Imperial China, ed. Ellen Widmer, Stanford University Press, 1997.
Stories from Liaozai zhiyi: Lian Xiang, Xiao Cui
10/13 Ghostliness and Femininity (II)
Readings: Stories from Liaozai zhiyi: Blue Maid, Lian Suo, Qiao Niang.
Take-home Exam due on Oct. 18th.
Week 8
10/18 Film Screening: Farewell my Concubine, dir. by Chen Kaige, 1993.
10/20 Woman in Late Qing Literature
Readings: Wu Jianren, The Sea of Regret, trans. Patrick Hanan, University of Hawaii Press, 1995.
Tang Xiaobing, Chinese Modern: The Heroic and the Quotidian (Duke University, 2000), pp.1-40.
Week 9
10/25 New Women in Late Qing China: The Case of Qiu Jin and Lu Bicheng
Readings: “Historical Introduction,” in Chinese Studies in History, vol. 24, no.2, 5-9
Qiu Jin, excerpts from Women Writers of Traditional China, 633-657.
Lu Bicheng, handout.
10/27 Women and Chinese Modernity
Readings: Lu Xun: “New Year’s Sacrifice,” & “Soap.”
Brown, Carolyn, “Woman as Trope: Gender and Power in Lu Xun's 'Soap.'" Modern Chinese Literature 4,
1-2 (1988):55-70.
Week 10
11/1 Women and Chinese Modernity
Readings: Shen Congwen, “Xiaoxiao” & “Three Men and One Woman.”
Wang, David. Fictional Realism in Twentieth-Century China: Mao Dun, Lao She, Shen Congwen. NY:
Columbia UP, 1992.
11/3 “Boudoir Writing”
Readings: Lin Shuhua, “Embroidered Pillows,” “The Night of Mid-autumn Festival.”
Chow, Rey. "Virtuous Transactions: A Reading of Three Stories by Ling Shuhua" MCL 4 (1988).
Week 11
11/8 Women and Nationalist Discourse
Readings: Hsiao Hung, The Field of Life and Death, Indiana University Press, 1979
Liu, Lydia. "The Female Body and Nationalist Discourse: Manchuria in Xiao Hong's Field of Life and
Death." In Angela Zito and T. Barlow, eds. Body, Subject and Power in China. Chicago: UCP, 1994, 15777.
11/10 Model Girl in the Chinese Jazz Age (Shanghai, 1930s) I
Listening: Voices from the Chinese Jazz Age (on audio tapes and CDs)
Reading: Andrew F. Jones, "The Sing-Song Girl and the Nation: Music and Media Culture in Shanghai,
1927-1937."
Week 12
11/15 Modern Girl in the Chinese Jazz Age (Shanghai, 1930s) II
Readings: Mu Shiying, “Five in a Night Club,” and “black Whirl Wind” from Renditions No, 37 (Spring
1992), Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Shu-mei Shih, “Gender, Race, and Semicolonialism: Liu Naou’s Urban Shanghai Landscape”, in The
Lure of the Modern, 276-301.
Short Paper Due on Nov. 15th.
11/17 Modern Girl in the Chinese Jazz Age (Shanghai, 1930s) III
Video Clips: Goddess, dir. by Wu Yonggang (1934); New Woman, dir. by Cai Chusheng (1934).
Readings: Leo Ou-fan Lee, “The Urban Milieu of Shanghai Cinema,” in Shanghai Modern, 82-119.
Zhang Yinjing, “Imagining the Modern Woman in Shanghai” in The City in Modern Chinese Literature &
Film, 185-231.
Week 13
11/22 Women in the Public Arena: the Case of Ruan Lingyu
Video Clips: Center Stage. Dir. by Stanley Kwan, 1992.
Readings: Lu Xun, “Gossip Is A Fearful Thing.” (1935), in Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang trans., Selected
Works of Lu Xun: Volume IV. (Beijing: Foreign Langs Press, 1981)
Kristine Harris, “The New Woman Incident: Cinema, Scandal, and Spectacle in 1935 Shanghai." In
Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu ed., Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender.
11/24 War and Domesticity in Occupied Shanghai: Eileen Chang
Readings: Eileen Chang, Romances in a Fallen City.
Lee, Leo Ou-fan. "Eileen Chang: Romances of a Fallen City." In Lee, Shanghai Modern: The Flowering
of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930-1945. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1999, 267-303.
Week 14
11/29 Women in Urban Fiction (1)
Readings: Wang Shuo, Playing for Thrills. tr. H. Goldblatt. NY: William Morrow, 1998.
Chen, Helen H. "From Sentimental Trilogy to Gangster Trilogy: Moral Dilemmas in a Cultural Crisis."
American Journal of Chinese Studies 8, 1 (April 2001): 57-90.
12/1 Women in Urban Fiction (II)
Readings: Li Ang, "Flower Season," "A Love Letter Never Sent" (from The Butcher's Wife, tr. Howard
Goldblatt); Zhu Tianwen, "Fin-de-siéle Splendor" (from Joseph Lau and Howard Goldblatt eds. The
Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature; Hsi Hsi, "A Girl Like Me" (from Ann Carver and
Sung-sheng Chang ed., Bamboo Shoots After the Rain: Contemporary Stories of Taiwan. NY: The
Feminist Press, 1990.
Chong, Ling. "Feminism and Female Taiwan Writers." In Pang-yuan Chi and David Wang, eds., Chinese
Literature in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century: A Critical Survey. Bloomington: Indiana UP,
2000, 146-60.
Week 15
12/6 The Politics of Sexuality in the Age of Globalization I
Reading: Wei Hui, Shanghai Baby (2001).
Shi, Anbin. "Body Writing and Corporeal Feminism: Reconstructing Gender Identity in Contemporary
China." In Shi, A Comparative Approach to Redefining Chinese-ness in the Era of Globalization.
Lewiston, NY: Mellen Press, 2003, 129-206.
12/8 The Politics of Sexuality in the Age of Globalization II & Conclusions
Discussion: the sex-blogger Muzimei and her impact on the Internet.
Take-home Exam and Final Paper Due on Dec., 14th, 2004.