Suchergebnisse

"Through drawings of beautiful women published in popular media, Citizens of Beauty introduces readers to the dramatically changing Chinese social world at the turn of the twentieth century. China's most famous commercial artists promoted their sketches of idealized women through journals, newspapers, and distinct compendia called One Hundred Illustrated Beauties. The genre drew upon a centuries-old tradition in which publishers produced illustrated books of beauties and virtuous women that were steeped in traditions of morality, desirability, and literary cultivation. By comparing illustrations produced in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Citizens of Beauty reveals the shifts in foundational values organizing Chinese society that would bring forth the democratic citizenry of the Republic. Modern beauties were freed of Confucian moral constraints and even "good women" forged productive, independent lives that included careers. Changes in the Illustrated Beauties genre reveal how ordinary readers of books and newspapers were able to imagine these social transformations. Citizens of Beauty is the first book to explore the One Hundred Beauties illustrations as a tool for comparing social ideals during the shift from imperial to Republican times and to show how images of women expressed ordinary people's desire for democratic, technological modernity. The book contextualizes the social and political significance of the aestheticized female body through its comparison of images from one genre as it underwent rapid and radical change"--

"In this compelling new study, Louise Edwards explores the lives of some of China's most famous women warriors and wartime spies through history. Focusing on key figures including Hua Mulan, Zheng Pingru and Liu Hulan, this book examines the ways in which these extraordinary women have been commemorated through a range of cultural mediums including film, theatre, museums and textbooks. Whether these women are perceived as heroes or anti-heroes, Edwards shows that both the popular and official presentations of them and of their accomplishments have evolved in line with China's shifting political values and military aspirations over the past 100 years. In lively and accessible style, with illustrations throughout, this book sheds new light on the relationship between gender and militarisation and the ways that women have been exploited to glamorise war both historically and in China today"--

Abstract
This article explores recent public debates in Australia about Chinese living overseas and the recent actions by members of the Chinese community in seeking official apologies for historic and current injustices. It explores the ways in which these calls to rectify both current and past injustices draw Chinese overseas into current PRC agendas by embedding their experiences into narratives of China's humiliation and victimhood — key tenets of the China Dream to rejuvenate the nation in the twenty-first century. This article argues that by drawing Chinese Overseas into biologized notions of ethnicity and into an ethno-nationalist identity of victimhood, the PRC may cause harm to Chinese living in multicultural Australia.

AbstractThis article examines 70 years of debate about Ding Ling's 1941 influential short story about a woman spy, "When I was in Xia Village." In the article I show that the re-absorption of "our" female spies into post-conflict solidarity narratives is a fraught process. For national governments, the difficulty lies in asserting the moral legitimacy of their rule in the face of evidence about their deployment of women as sex spies. For national populations, the difficulty lies in the desire to construct reassuring victory stories within which peacetime normalcy can be restored. The diverse exegeses around Ding Ling's "Xia Village" reveal that even decades after the hostilities cease, "our" women sex spies still require an explanation to communities seeking to consolidate or "remember" their national virtue. The evolution of this process of "explaining" reveals the on-going importance of sexual morality to governance in current-day China. Specifically, through the analysis of the critiques of "Xia Village" the article demonstrates that female chastity has been and continues to be an important commodity in establishing and sustaining popular perceptions of the moral virtue of the PRC as a nation, and the CCP as its legitimate government.