CfP: Women, Writing and Visuality in Contemporary China / Special Issue “Frontiers of Literary Studies in China” (FLSC)

Women, Writing and Visuality in Contemporary China

A proposed special issue of

Frontiers of Literary Studies in China (FLSC)

Edited by Géraldine Fiss and Li Guo

Chinese women writers and filmmakers today contribute in unique and significant ways to cultural change, while both embodying and transcending feminist concerns. Rather than perpetuating 20th century discourses concerning women’s emancipation, many contemporary women intellectuals, writers and visual artists are articulating new forms of consciousness and addressing pivotal concerns of our time in provocative, oftentimes experimental ways. This special issue of Frontiers will explore novel modes of narrative invention, aesthetic innovation and cultural critique in contemporary Chinese women’s literature and film. Areas of inquiry include but are not limited to: 1. modes of articulating and expressing subjectivity in fiction and film; 2. unconventional subject matter and voices in feminine/feminist texts such as, for instance, homosexual and transsexual themes; 3. creative de/constructions of the relationship between gender, language and the body; 4. ecocritical consciousness and creative engagement of environmental degradation; 5. re-conceptualizations of the intersection between urban space and human subjectivity; 6. the creative utilization and re-imagination of classical Chinese culture as well as the corpus of modern Chinese literature and film; 7. male authors’ critical engagement with and portrayal of women’s themes.

Submissions examining these and related issues in literary/fictional or visual/cinematic texts are welcome, as are essays that incorporate interdisciplinary, transnational and comparative perspectives. A broad range of theoretical approaches may be used in the examination of texts by contemporary authors from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the global Chinese diaspora. This special issue seeks to provide critical insight into the vitality and diversity of contemporary Chinese women’s culture of innovation. At the same time, we are interested in tracing the interconnections between Chinese women artists active today, their intellectual-artistic predecessors, classical Chinese aesthetics, and literary-cinematic influences from within and beyond China.

Potential topics include:

• Modes of innovation and experimentation in Chinese women’s literature and film
• Contemporary Chinese feminine/feminist counter-discourses
• Urban space and human subjectivity in literary and visual texts
• De/construction of gender, language and body
• Creative engagement of homosexual, transsexual and ecocritical themes
• Transnational and cross-temporal connections between Chinese women authors, classical Chinese aesthetics and non-Chinese texts

The submission deadline for 500 word paper proposals is May 10, 2015 and for 8000 word final papers October 10, 2015 (for a projected publication date of Winter 2015).

Please adhere to FLSC STYLE SHEET GUIDELINES. Send electronic submissions to both guest editors Géraldine Fiss (gfiss@usc.edu) and Li Guo (li.guo@usu.edu), as well as FLSC managing editor Chun Zhang (zhangchun@hep.com.cn).