The Making Of A Chinese Feminist Rhetoric

One of the more striking trends in the field of rhetorical studies has been its increasing

engagement with the speaking, writing, and other culture-making activities of women, both in the past and present. We have seen a surge of scholarship in women's rhetorics and feminist historiography in the past two decades. The study of women's rhetorics, however, has mainly focused on Western women. Only recently have feminist historiographers and rhetoricians begun to turn their attention to ED Hardy Boots comparative feminist rhetoric and transnational feminist rhetorics. The study of Chinese women's writing has been conducted mainly within the context of comparative rhetoric and comparative literature.

Despite tremendous growth in attention to Chinese women's writing, little research has been done on women's rhetoric of the early twentieth century. Women's writing during this period demonstrates a vitality that underscores and contributes to political, social, and cultural upheavals, as well as new emerging public discourses from which it arose. Given that scholarship in modern Chinese literature has initiated the conversation about both the subject matter and modes of inquiry, to recover women's contributions, it is necessary to examine the major approaches applied to the appraisal of women's writing. In recent studies of modern Chinese literary texts, particularly texts concerned with women and gender issues, two directions have developed. On the one hand, scholars attempt to adapt Western literary theories to analyze Chinese practice so as to gain insights into the theory and practice of literary studies in general. Although there is an awareness of the conceptual gap between Western literary modes and Chinese literary practice, some scholars tend to impose on Chinese literary texts some larger Western interpretive networks, such as individualism and Orientalism. On the other hand, scholars look for a new theoretical model by turning to Western critical and feminist theories; though some, wittingly or unwittingly, end up hypercorrecting the Chinese texts and taking these texts out of their immediate cultural and historical contexts. Both approaches have led to ED Hardy Hoodies a series of publications (for example, Chow; K. Liu and Tang; Lu). But examining the premises of these approaches reveals that a more reflective and sensitive critical engagement is needed to recuperate women's contributions to the development of Chinese feminist discourse at the turn of the century.

Adapting Western literary concepts to study modern Chinese literary texts is a plausible approach in itself, but we should keep in mind its daunting challenges. We have to recognize that meaning can be gained, lost, or even created in Chinese writers' modification of Western concepts or modes, such as realism, romanticism, and authorial persona. More important, when comparing and contrasting Chinese writers' work with its Western counterpart at a microlevel, we must be mindful of the danger of assessing Chinese texts through larger Western interpretive networks.

by: Henter White

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