Disrupting Narratives

Chinese Women Writers and the Japanese Cultural Agenda in Manchuria, 1936-1945

Bibliographic Data

ID6008035
AuthorsNorman Smith (0000-0002-5697-3800, University of British Columbia, corresponding author)
Year2004
Volume30
Issue3
Pages295-325
Publication date2004-07-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueModern China (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0097-7004 • E-ISSN: 1552-6836
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0097700404264508
OpenAlexW2025807530
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited14

This article assesses the lives, careers, and literary legacies of the most prominent Chinese women writers during the latter stage of the Japanese occupation of Manchuria. The article reveals how they articulated dissatisfaction with the Japanese cultural agenda while working within Japanese colonial institutions. Empowered by ineffectual state policies and misogynous official neglect, the women embarked on a decade-long quest to “describe” and “expose” the reality of Chinese women’s lives under Japanese occupation. May Fourth ideals of women’s emancipation inspired them to forge careers as critics of Japan’s cultural agenda, and they undermined Japanese efforts to sever ties between Manchuria and the rest of China. This study adds to a growing body of recent critical scholarship incorporating Chinese-language sources into received interpretations of Japan’s colonial state of Manchukuo

China · Colonialism · Emancipation · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Scholarship · Sociology · State (computer science · Chinese history and philosophy · Gender Studies · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

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