Li Guo on Dissertation Reviews Talking Shop

Dissertation Reviews has posted Li Guo‘s “Talking Shop” article “The Promise and Perils of Feminist Criticism in Chinese Studies.” Here’s how it begins:

A few days ago, I was chatting with a colleague on the subject of reading Peacocks Flying Southeast  孔 雀東南飛 (1935), a tragedy about love and marriage in a feudal family, written by a female playwright Yuan Changying  袁昌英 (1894-1973). “I guess I am not a good critical reader,” I said. “Why so?” my colleague asked. “I read with too much sympathy,” was my response. This seemingly small topic subsequently triggered a series of discussions on what constitutes ethical readership. Can there be a genuinely compassionate reading that does not exclude reason, a self-reflexive sympathy that embraces a critical stance and actively negotiates the axes of differences in gender, sexuality, and social class? As a feminist researcher with a scholarly interest in late imperial and modern Chinese women’s writings, I found myself preoccupied with the following questions: While working with historical and contemporary women authors who endeavor to deliver their inner feelings through sincere self-portrayal, can a researcher of such topics succeed in locating himself/herself in a socio-historical situation of sincerity? How do we re-assess the researcher’s role? Is it that of a competent agent maintaining an ethical understanding of their objects of study, or is the researcher one who stands in a responsible relationship with authors in the past?  Can an ethical researcher maintain a simultaneously critical and sympathetic stance as a reader?

Click here for the whole piece.

Chinese Literature & 11 other sections coming to Dissertation Reviews

The announcement was made months ago, but I’ll be getting in touch with dissertation writers & reviewers soon.

We are proud to announce that, starting in the 2012-13 academic year, Dissertation Reviews will undergo a major expansion to include 12 new and enlarged fields (for a total of 15 fields in all). If you would like to have your dissertation reviewed, or help us by serving as a reviewer, please contact dissertationreviews@gmail.com.

Our new fields, and their respective Field Editors, include:

Bioethics (Tamara Kayali)
Chinese Literature (Lucas Klein)
Inner Asian Studies (Loretta Kim)
*Korean Studies (John DiMoia)
Medical Anthropology (Orkideh Behrouzan)
Premodern Japanese Literature (William Fleming)
Russian Studies (Elizabeth McGuire and Philippa Hetherington)
South Asian Studies (Rebecca Grapevine)
Southeast Asian Studies (Chiara Formichi)
Tibetan and Himalayan Studies (Nicole Willock and Nancy G. Lin)
Visual Studies (Rikke Schmidt Kjaergaard)
[* Korean Studies is both a continuation and expansion of the field pioneered this past year by Nancy Abelmann and Laura Nelson]

In addition, our current constellation of fields will continue to operate, featuring reviews of work in:

Chinese History (Thomas S. Mullaney)
Japan Studies (Dennis Frost)
Science Studies (Leon Rocha)

Click here for the announcement page, featuring bios of the field editors.