Translating Feminisms in China - (Gender and History Special Issues) by Dorothy Ko & Wang Zheng (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This volume, which brings together articles by scholars and activists in China, Japan, Canada and the US in multiple disciplines, seeks to illuminate the problems and possibilities involved in translating feminism from the metropolitan 'West' to a locale rife with its own ideas about gender, class, body and sexuality.

• Showcases the centrality of gender in the formation of modern China
  
• Demonstrates the extent to which translated feminisms -- whatever they mean -- have transformed the terms in which modern Chinese understand their own subjectivities and histories

From the Back Cover

This volume, which brings together articles by scholars and activists in China, Japan, Canada and the US in multiple disciplines, seeks to illuminate the problems and possibilities involved in translating feminism from the metropolitan 'West' to a locale rife with its own ideas about gender, class, the body and sexuality. Furthermore, these articles showcase the centrality of gender in the formation of modern China by demonstrating the extent to which translated feminisms - whatever they mean - have transformed the terms in which modern Chinese understand their own subjectivities and histories. This book is essential reading for students, academics and general readers interested in East Asia, comparative women's history, feminist texts and the politics of translation.

Review Quotes

"One of the major strengths of the chapters dealing with the Socialist period lies in the authors' use of participant observation and extensive interviewing." (WOMEN: A CULTURAL REVIEW, December 2009)

"The editors have selected contributions from a wide range of positions and disciplines to create a stimulating 'cacophony' of voices, analyses and interpretations." (Women and Gender in Chinese Studies Review, 2008)

About the Author

Dorothy Ko, a native of Hong Kong, is Professor of Chinese History at Barnard College, Columbia University. She is the author of the recent monograph, Cinderella's Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding (2005).

Wang Zheng is an Associate Professor of Women's Studies and Associate Research Scientist of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is the author of Women in the Chinese Enlightenment: Oral and Textual Histories (1999) and co-editor with Xueping Zhong and Bai Di of Some of Us: Chinese Women Growing Up in the Mao Era (2002).