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Women and Gender in Modern Chinese Literature

Research Sources & Tips


Page contents: Reserves | Overviews | Books | Journal Articles | Full Text | Popular Press | Request Articles/Books | Writing

 


I. Course Reserves

Check out the Course Reserves.


II. Facts and Overviews

book coverThe Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature.
Joseph S.M. Lau and Howard Goldblatt, editors.
PL2658.E1 C64 2007

 

 

Writing Women In Modern China: an Anthology Of Women's Literature From The Early Twentieth Century. PL2515 .W75 1998

Writing Women In Modern China: the Revolutionary Years, 1936 - 1976. PL2515 .W76 2005  

Herself An Author: Gender, Agency, and Writing In Late Imperial China. PL2278 .F66 2008   

Writing Women in Late Imperial China. PL2264 .W72 1997

Women's Literary Feminism in Twentieth Century China. PL2278 .D66 2005   

 

The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Literary Theory. PN98.W64 C35 2006

 

Chinese Fiction Writers (1900-1949) (DLB)
Chang, Ai-Ling , Xiao, Hong , Lu, Yin , Lu, Xun , Ling, Shuhua ,Ding, Ling

 

book cover The Cambridge Companion to Modern Chinese Culture
edited by Kam Louie
Bookstacks: DS775.2 .C452424 2008

 

book cover
The Search for Modern China: a Documentary Collection
edited by Pei-kai Cheng and Michael Lestz with Jonathan D. Spence.
Bookstacks: DS753.86 .S33 1999


III. Chinese Popular Culture

A. Use Library Catalogs to find books

1. Tufts Libraries Catalog


2. WorldCat (beyond Tufts)


B. Searches & Results

(note the search pattern; modify to your own needs)

The Broader Context:

Chinese literature

Chinese fiction

 

The Literary Writers:

"Chang Eileen" or "Zhang Ailing"

Ding Ling

Ling, Shuhua

Lu, Xun, 1881-1936 -- Criticism and interpretation

"Wang Anyi"

"Xiao Hong"

"Zhang Jie" and (fiction* or novel* or stories)

(To distiguish "Zhang Jie", the literary writer to any other namesake.)

 

Tip: fiction* searches for fiction, fictions, fictional, etc.


Topic:

literature and feminis* and (china or chinese)

 


Literary Anthologies:

Introductory texts in anthologies provide overviews and surveys of an author and his/her works, a literary era, literary style, and so on so forth. The explanatory footnotes enhance an understanding of the works in terms of contemporary culture and literary traditions in which the authors lived and wrote. Hence, the historical significance of the works.

Writing Women In Modern China: an Anthology Of Women's Literature From The Early Twentieth Century.
edited by Amy D. Dooling and Kristina M. Torgeson.
PL2515 .W75 1998

 

****Use WorldCat to find these anthologies in Tisch (limit your search to Tufts), because our local catalog does not always include table of contents, so it is not possible to tell if your writers are included:

"can xue" and "chinese literature"

 

Path of Discovery in the Catalog

1. Find a title/author (assigned readings/Course Reserves);

2. Note the descriptive language of the Catalog record.

3. Use that language in further searches

 

e.g. Click on subject/author in the record to see further results and related topics.

 

Title Writing Women in Modern China: the Revolutionary Years, 1936-1976./ edited by Amy D. Dooling.
Publisher New York: Columbia University Press, c2005.
Subject Chinese literature -- Women authors.
Chinese literature -- 20th century -- Translations into English.
Women and literature -- China.
Added Author Dooling, Amy D.

IV. More Specific and Current Discussions

A. Use the subject databases to find journal articles.

1 & 2. JSTOR and Project Muse

JSTOR is a favorite with its full texts in core journals of all disciplines. Project Muse does not include exactly the same JSTOR journals, but it has more recent and current articles on many topics.

 

Expand your search into more databases and from various perspectives

3. Academic OneFile
All subjects; a convenient Quick Start. Here are some sample findings:

 

4. Literature (MLA)

5. Women's Studies International

6. Bibliography of Asian Studies

7. When use GoogleScholar, set your Library Links to access Tufts full texts.

B. Current Scholarship on a Topic

Reviews of recent books and other types of review articles in major journals in a discipline are likely to summarize the current state of research in an area.

Two examples:

Chinese Women Writers and the Feminist Imagination, 1905-1948. (review). Journal of Asian Studies, 67:2 2008, pp 701-703.


Woman, War, Domesticity: Shanghai Literature and Popular Culture of the 1940s (review). China Review International, Spring 2006, pp144-148.

 

A Few Notable Journals:

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies

The China Quarterly

China Review International

Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies

Modern China

Modern Chinese Literature and Culture

Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique

 

C. More Articles like this "perfect" one

How:

Search, in Arts and Humanities Citation Index, for the article you have read.


For example:

Jankowiak, William. "Chinese Women, Gender, and Sexuality: A Critical Review of Recent Studies." Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars  31: 1 (1999), 31-37.
References: 29 Times Cited: 2

You can, then, look up, in the record, the 29 references that Jankowiak cited for his article and, in turn, 2 articles that cited his. The assumption is that these articles address related issues.


Note:

1. Not every single article is cited;
2. Influential authors are cited more often;
3. More recent publications take time to be cited.

D. Finding Full Texts

1. Click on the findIt@tufts button button in your search results screen to a window of three sequential options:

a. link to the digital full text when available;

b. link to a Library Catalog search for the print journal;

c. link to ILliad for requesting the article when the above two options are negative.

2. Search for a journal directly here:

a. Tufts Library Catalog (including e-journals)

b. Electronic journals list

c. Use ILliad to request your article, if Tufts does not have your journal.

E. Request Articles/Books

Set up for your ILliad account


Use ILLiad, our Interlibrary Loan Service, to request articles, books and other materials that are not available at Tufts.


V. Popular Press

A. Current:

Book, Movie, Music, Play, And Video Reviews (in LexisNexis)


Factiva (more international coverage)


B. Historical

Times Digital Archive  (1785 - 1985)

New York Times Online Archive
(1851 - 3 years before current date)


Readers' Guide Retrospective (1890-1982)


American Periodicals (1740 - 1940)

British Humanities Index (1962- )
British Periodicals (1680s - 1930s)


Appendix I. Writing and Citing

A Short Guide to Writing about Literature by Sylvan Barnet. Ref: PE1479.C7 B3

Writing about Literature (handout from Writing Center at UNC.)

MLA Style (for citing sources)