Crossing Borders and Confounding Identity advances our understanding of the diversity of Chinese women's experiences and achievements, from the Han Dynasty to the present. With a particular emphasis on literature and the arts, the chapters offer insights into the work of current Chinese women artists as well as literary, historical, and cultural portrayals of women and women's issues. Taken together, they provide new perspectives on Chinese women, their lived experiences and fictional representations, across a broad spectrum of literature, theater, film, and the visual arts. Accessible to nonspecialists and general readers, this book will also be a valuable resource for faculty who teach Asian studies courses in history and in the humanities, as well as for students in interdisciplinary Asian studies courses.

List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsPrefaceCheryl C. D. HughesIntroductionEmma Jinhua Teng1. Emily Georgiana Kemp: An Early Twentieth-Century Traveler's Perspective on the Heart-Mind of ChinaDona M. Cady2. Women's Agency at the Close of Ming Dynasty China: Vulnerability, Violation, and Vengeance in Ling Mengchu's Vernacular Short StoriesMarla Hoffman Lunderberg3. A Flight of Cultural Imagination in Heian Japan: The Image of Yang Guifei in Genji monagatori and "Chang hen ge" Catherine Ryu4. Women Generals and Martial Maidens: China's Warrior Women in History, Literature, and FilmCheryl C. D. Hughes5. Women in Male Roles: Cross-Dressed Actresses in Early Twentieth-Century ChinaLaura Xie6. Pavilion of Women: Gender Politics and Global Cultural TranslatabilityJinhua Li7. Gendered Screens: Women, Space, and Social Transformation in the Works of Contemporary Chinese Female FilmmakersYanhong Zhu8. Women in Chinese Visual Art over the Past CenturyShelley Drake Hawks9. "Lessons for Women": From The Good Earth to Leftover WomenJessica A. Sheetz-NguyenIndex