Chinese Women Writers and the Feminist Imagination, 1905-1948

Yan Haiping is University Professor of Cross-cultural Studies and the Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Media and Society at Shanghai Jiaotong University, China and Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Economy and Culture at Cornell University, USA.

• Introduction: On Empowerment 1. Unseen Rhythms, Sea Changes 2. Qiu Jin and Her Imaginary 3. The Stars of Night: Bing Xin and the Literary Constellation of the 1920s 4. Other Life: Bai Wei, Yuan Changying, and Social Dramas in the 1930s 5. War, Death, and the Art of Existence: Mobile Women in the 1940s 6. Rhythms of the Unreal [I]: Early Ding Ling and a Feminist Passage 7. Rhythms of the Unreal [II]: The Ding Ling Story and the Chinese Revolution. Afterword: Then and Now

'...a powerfully written book that engages in a timely dialogue and debate with existing studies of Chinese women writers and women’s writing; their meaning and significance with regard to the struggles of modern China; and the historical choices made in that violent first half of the twentieth century.' - Xueping Zhong, The Journal of Asian Studies'Yan carefully balances historical inquiry and literary criticism to highlight the ways in which the writers aspired to overcome many of the pressures bearing on contemporary Chinese women ... Chinese Women Writers and the Feminist Imagination is an important complement to recent works by Tani Barlow and Nicole Huang.' - Norman Smith, Pacific Affairs, Winter 2006"Yan Haiping's book is a welcome addition to the ongoing endeavor to reexamine women's recent literary past in the Chinese context." - Amy Dooling, Asian Theatre Journal 25, 2