Wai-yee Li is the 1879 Professor of Chinese Literature at Harvard University. Her recent books include The Problem and Peril of Things (Columbia, 2022), A Topsy-Turvy World (Columbia, 2023), and an annotated translation of The Peach Blossom Fan (Oxford, 2024).

• AcknowledgementsList of Figures and TableNotes on ContributorsIntroduction: Why Gender and Friendship?Wai-yee LiPart I: Friendship and Female Agency1 On the Difficulty of Friendship: the Case of Li QingzhaoRonald Egan2 In the Absence of Discourse: Articulating Female Friendship in Late Imperial ChinaGrace S. Fong3 Laying Claim to an Autonomous Self: Women’s Friendships in the Nineteenth-Century tanci Novel Mengying yuanMaram EpsteinPart 2: The Publicity of Friendship: Gender and Community4 How to Fight with Your Friends: Reconceptualizing Gender and CommunityHu Ying5 Gender and Friendship in the Staging of a Star: Mei LanfangCatherine V. Yeh6 Intercultural Mutuality: Mary Hannah Fulton and Zhang ZhujunEllen WidmerPART 3: Rethinking Relationships7 Hermits and Their Wives: Gender and Friendship in Early Chinese TextsYiqun Zhou8 Literary Negotiations: Friendship in the World of Late Ming CourtesansWai-yee Li9 Love or Lust Redux: on the Pure Relationship in Chinese LiteratureHaiyan LeeIndex

Wai-yee Li is the 1879 Professor of Chinese Literature at Harvard University. Her recent books include The Problem and Peril of Things (Columbia, 2022), A Topsy-Turvy World (Columbia, 2023), and an annotated translation of The Peach Blossom Fan (Oxford, 2024).

• AcknowledgementsList of Figures and TableNotes on ContributorsIntroduction: Why Gender and Friendship?Wai-yee LiPart I: Friendship and Female Agency1 On the Difficulty of Friendship: the Case of Li QingzhaoRonald Egan2 In the Absence of Discourse: Articulating Female Friendship in Late Imperial ChinaGrace S. Fong3 Laying Claim to an Autonomous Self: Women’s Friendships in the Nineteenth-Century tanci Novel Mengying yuanMaram EpsteinPart 2: The Publicity of Friendship: Gender and Community4 How to Fight with Your Friends: Reconceptualizing Gender and CommunityHu Ying5 Gender and Friendship in the Staging of a Star: Mei LanfangCatherine V. Yeh6 Intercultural Mutuality: Mary Hannah Fulton and Zhang ZhujunEllen WidmerPART 3: Rethinking Relationships7 Hermits and Their Wives: Gender and Friendship in Early Chinese TextsYiqun Zhou8 Literary Negotiations: Friendship in the World of Late Ming CourtesansWai-yee Li9 Love or Lust Redux: on the Pure Relationship in Chinese LiteratureHaiyan LeeIndex

Wai-yee Li is the 1879 Professor of Chinese Literature at Harvard University. Her recent books include The Problem and Peril of Things (Columbia, 2022), A Topsy-Turvy World (Columbia, 2023), and an annotated translation of The Peach Blossom Fan (Oxford, 2024).

• AcknowledgementsList of Figures and TableNotes on ContributorsIntroduction: Why Gender and Friendship?Wai-yee LiPart I: Friendship and Female Agency1 On the Difficulty of Friendship: the Case of Li QingzhaoRonald Egan2 In the Absence of Discourse: Articulating Female Friendship in Late Imperial ChinaGrace S. Fong3 Laying Claim to an Autonomous Self: Women’s Friendships in the Nineteenth-Century tanci Novel Mengying yuanMaram EpsteinPart 2: The Publicity of Friendship: Gender and Community4 How to Fight with Your Friends: Reconceptualizing Gender and CommunityHu Ying5 Gender and Friendship in the Staging of a Star: Mei LanfangCatherine V. Yeh6 Intercultural Mutuality: Mary Hannah Fulton and Zhang ZhujunEllen WidmerPART 3: Rethinking Relationships7 Hermits and Their Wives: Gender and Friendship in Early Chinese TextsYiqun Zhou8 Literary Negotiations: Friendship in the World of Late Ming CourtesansWai-yee Li9 Love or Lust Redux: on the Pure Relationship in Chinese LiteratureHaiyan LeeIndex