Title
Gender and sexuality in modern Chinese history [electronic resource] / Susan L. Mann.
ISBN
9781139157056 (electronic bk.)
9780521865142
052186514X
9780521683708 (pbk.)
052168370X (pbk.)
Publication Details
New York : Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Language
English
Description
1 online resource (xx, 235 p.) : ill.
Call Number
HQ1075.5.C6 M36 2011eb
Dewey Decimal Classification
305.420951
Summary
"Gender and sexuality have been neglected topics in the history of Chinese civilization, despite the fact that philosophers, writers, parents, doctors, and ordinary people of all descriptions have left reams of historical evidence on the subject. Moreover, China's late imperial government was arguably more concerned about gender and sexuality among its subjects than any other pre-modern state. Sexual desire and sexual activity were viewed as innate human needs, essential to bodily health and well-being, and universal marriage and reproduction served the state by supplying tax-paying subjects, duly bombarded with propaganda about family values. How did these and other late imperial legacies shape twentieth-century notions of gender and sexuality in modern China? In this wonderfully written and enthralling book, Susan Mann answers that question by focusing in turn on state policy, ideas about the physical body, and notions of sexuality and difference in China's recent history, from medicine to the theater to the gay bar; from law to art and sports. More broadly, the book shows how changes in attitudes toward sex and gender in China during the twentieth century have cast a new light on the process of becoming modern, while simultaneously challenging the universalizing assumptions of Western modernity"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description
Description based on print version record.
Series
New approaches to Asian history
Part I. Gender, Sexuality, and the State: 1. Family and state: the separation of the sexes; 2. Traffic in women and the problem of single men; 3. Gender relations in politics and law
Part II. Gender, Sexuality, and the Body: 4. The body in medicine, art, and sport; 5. The body adorned, displayed, concealed, and altered; 6. Abandoning the body: female suicide and female infanticide
Part III. Gender, Sexuality, and the Other: 7. Same-sex relationships and trans-gendered performance; 8. Sexuality in the creative imagination; 9. Sexuality and the Other
Conclusion: gender, sexuality and, citizenship
Afterword: Gender and sexuality: useful categories of historical analysis?
