Question of Women in Chinese Feminism

Tani E. Barlow is a historian of modern China teaching in the Women’s Studies Department at the University of Washington, Seattle. She is the editor of many books, including Formations of Colonial Modernity in East Asia and New Asian Marxisms, both published by Duke University Press. Barlow is the founding senior editor of positions: east asia cultures critique, also published by Duke University Press.

• Acknowledgments viiIntroduction 1 1 History and Catachresis 15 2 Theorizing “Women” 373 Foundations of Progressive Chinese Feminism 644 Woman and Colonial Modernity in the Early Thought of Ding Ling 1275 Women under Maoist Nationalism in the Thought of Ding Ling 1906 Socialist Modernization and the Market Feminism of Li Xiaojiang 2537 Dai Jinhua, Globalization, and 1990s Poststructuralist Feminism 302Conclusion 355Appendix to Chapter 1: Histtoriography and Catachresis 365Notes 373Works Cited 443Index 471

“Placing feminist thought within a continuum that defines human life in eugenic terms, Tani E. Barlow shows how Chinese feminism is not simply an inheritance of western ideas but is absolutely central to modernity and its emphasis on the sexed human being. The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism will spark controversy and will eventually stand as a model of scholarship for all of us to follow.”-Wendy Larson, author of Women and Writing in Modern China “Tani E. Barlow breaks original ground. Her book has a theoretical reach and sophistication very rare in the China field, drawing its analytical tools from history, literature, feminist studies, psychoanalysis, and film criticism.”-Gail Hershatter, author of Dangerous Pleasures: Prostitution and Modernity in Twentieth-Century Shanghai “The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism is an exciting and provocative journey through Chinese feminism and its theoretical permutations throughout the twentieth century.”-Lisa Rofel, author of Other Modernities: Gendered Yearnings in China after Socialism