Performing "Nation" ─ Gender Politics in Literature, Theater, and the Visual Arts of China and Japan, 1880-1940

Scholars of history, art, and literature explore the changing constructs of masculinities and femininities in the two Asian countries from the modern arrival of Western influence to World War II. They discuss such aspects as banknote design as a battlefield of gender politics and national representation in Meiji Japan, failed modern Chinese girls in early the 20th century, the female impersonator as the national cultural symbol of republican China, and the female nude in Japanese oil painting and posters from the 1880s to the 1920s. Many of the 12 essays are from an October 2004 international conference in Heidelberg. Annotation c2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Doris Croissant is senior professor of East Asian art history at the University of Heidelberg (Germany). She has published on funeral art and portraiture in China, Rinpa painting, the concepts of realism and photography in Japan, and the gender discourse of native aesthetics in Japanese art and popular culture. Catherine Yeh is an Associate Professor at Boston University. Her research interests are presently in twentieth century Chinese entertainment culture, its political implications and its impact on social change. Her recent publications include Shanghai Love: Courtesan, Intellectuals and Entertainment Culture, 1850-1910 (Seattle, 2005). Joshua S. Mostow is Professor of Asian Studies at The University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada). He is also co-editor, with Norman Bryson and Maribeth Graybill, of Gender and Power in the Japanese Visual Field (Hawai’i, 2003).