publication by WAGNet members

We are delighted to announce the publication of:

Mechthild Leutner, Nicola Spakowski (Eds.) Women in China. The Republican Period in Historical Perspective Berliner China-Studien 44

Münster: LIT 2005, 512 pp., 59.90 EUR, ISBN3-8258-8147-4.

The Chinese Republican period, often seen as representing a continuum between Imperial China and the People's Republic of China, was shaped by profound upheavals which also impacted strongly on gender relations. This volume presents the latest research on the situation of women during the Republican period, placing it in a historical perspective. In addition to contributions dealing with theoretical and methodological approaches to China-related women's research, a broad spectrum of experiences and discourses related to women in China is also considered: women and the state/women and the nation, political women and their posthumous careers, little traditions and discourses of otherness, women in social and economic life and women's education.

Contents
Introduction, Mechthild Leutner, Nicola Spakowski

Questions of Theory and Methodology

Hsiung Ping-chen, Seeing Neither the Past Nor the Future: The Trouble of Positioning Women in Modern China
Wen-hsin Yeh, The Paradox of Autonomy: Nation, Revolution, and Women through the Chinese Looking Glass
Mechthild Leutner, Women’s, Gender and Mainstream Studies on Republican China: Problems in Theory and Research

Women and the State/Women and the Nation

Gotelind Müller, Knowledge Is Easy – Action Is Difficult: The Case of Chinese Anarchist Discourse on Women and Gender Relations and Its Practical Limitations
Louise Edwards, Opposition to Women’s Suffrage in China: Confronting Modernity in Governance
Nicola Spakowski, Women’s Military Participation in the Communist Movementof the 1930s and 1940s: Patterns of Inclusion and Exclusion
Helen Praeger Young, Threads from Long March Stories: The Political, Economic and Social Experiences of Women Soldiers

Political Women and their Posthumous Careers

Sabine Hieronymus, Qiu Jin (1875-1907) – A Heroine for All Seasons
Natascha Vittinghoff, Jiang Qing and Nora: Drama and Politics in the Republican Period

Little Traditions and Discourses of Otherness

Maria Jaschok, Shui Jingjun, Gender, Religion and Little Traditions: Henanese Women Singing Minguo
Jens Damm, Contemporary Discourses on Homosexuality in Republican China: A Critical Analysis of Terminology and Current Research

Women in Social and Economic Life: Discourses and Experiences

Tani E. Barlow, Wanting Some: Commodity Desire and the Eugenic Modern Girl
Bryna Goodman, Unvirtuous Exchanges: Women and the Corruptions of the Shanghai Stock Market in the Early Republican Era
Zang Jian, “Women Returning Home” – A Topic of Chinese Women’s Liberation
Du Fangqin, Women and Gender in the Rural Modernization Movement: A Case Study of Ding County (1912-37)
Christina K. Gilmartin/Isabel Crook, Marriage Reform, Rural Women and the Chinese State during World War II

Women’s Education

Harriet T. Zurndorfer, Gender, Higher Education, and the “New Woman”: The Experiences of Female Graduates in Republican China
Yu Chien-ming, Female Physical Education and the Media in Modern China