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Literary Body Discourses. Corporeality, Gender and Class Difference in Contemporary Chinese Women’S Poetry and Fiction

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Literary Body Discourses. Corporeality, Gender and Class Difference in Contemporary Chinese Women’S Poetry and Fiction Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2016 Literary body discourses: corporeality, gender and class difference in contemporary Chinese women’s poetry Jaguścik, Justyna Abstract: Die Arbeit untersucht den literarischen Körperdiskurs im postmaoistischen China der 1980er bis 2010er Jahre am Leitfaden vorrangig weiblicher Positionsnahmen. Im Rahmen dieses Diskurses wer- den zwei Hauptströmungen identifiziert: die sog. Körperschrift (body writing) von einerseits Autorinnen international erfolgreicher Romane wie Wei Hui und Sheng Keyi, anderseits auch von einer Dichterinn der jüngeren Generation Zheng Xiaoqiong und die sog. Lower Body-Bewegung (Dichterinnen Yin Lichuan und Wu Ang). Die Dissertation positioniert die Dichterin Zhai Yongming im Zentrum der auf den Körper und die Sex- Gender-Differenz ausgerichteten Weiblichkeitsdiskurse der Übergangszeit von einem sozialis- tischen zu einem neoliberal-kapitalistischen Gesellschaftssystem. Das Schreiben von Zhai Yongming lässt sich keiner von den beiden oben genannten Hauptströmungen eindeutig zuordnen, trotzdem hat es deren Vokabularien und Trajektorien massgeblich beeinflusst. Am Werdegang Zhais, Chinas bekanntesten zeitgenössischen Dichterin, wird gezeigt wie das Körper-Schreiben synchron mit den gesellschaftlichen Veränderungen dieser drei Jahrzehnte mehrere Phasen durchlief, teilweise sich neu erfand, teilweise aber auch gerne auf traditionell poetische Vorbilder zurückgriff. Theoretisch wie methodisch positioniert sich die Arbeit im Überlappungsraum der Literaturwissenschaften, Kultursoziologie und Gender Studies. My dissertation investigates discourses of the body in literature and theory in the People’s Republic of China from the late 1980s until the 2010s. This body turn is examined through the lens of female-authored texts. I argue, that in poetry and fiction the body stood at the centre of an emancipatory feminist project. Furthermore, the dissertation discusses critical reactions to these writings and scrutinizes rele- vant academic discourses. The main part of the dissertation introduces authors and texts in chronological order. Discussions which arose in reaction to the concept of women’s poetry (nüxing shige) in the 1980s deliver a departure point for analysing the body poetics of the late twentieth and twenty-first century. The third chapter is dedicated to a close reading of texts by the avant-garde poet Zhai Yongming. It sheds light on her literary feminism and adherence to local poetic tradition. The fourth chapter focuses on the “body writing” phenomenon. It discusses fictional, essayistic and poetic texts, along performances of female authorship. It challenges the popular opinion that this concept is a new and Western-inspired trend in Chinese literature and argues for its indebtedness to the literary landscape of the 1990s. The dissertation ends with an investigation into body writing by female migrant workers. A close reading of poetry by Zheng Xiaoqiong exemplifies how the previously subaltern authors add new layers tothe intellectuals’ body discourses. Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-104160 Dissertation Published Version Originally published at: Jaguścik, Justyna. Literary body discourses: corporeality, gender and class difference in contemporary Chinese women’s poetry. 2016, University of Zurich, Faculty of Arts. 2 Literary Body Discourses. Corporeality, Gender and Class Difference in Contemporary Chinese Women’s Poetry and Fiction. Thesis presented to the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of the University of Zurich for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Justyna Jaguścik Accepted in the spring semester of 2014 on the recommendation of the doctoral committee: Prof. Dr. Andrea Riemenschnitter (main advisor) Prof. Dr. Lidia Kasarełło Prof. Dr. Bettina Dennerlein Zürich, 2016 Acknowledgments At his point I would like to express my warmest gratitude to some of the many people and institutions without whom this project would never have been realised. My first debt of gratitude goes to my academic supervisors. My initial supervisor was Professor Lidia Kasarełło from the Chinese Studies Department of the University of Warsaw, the person who first introduced me to contemporary Chinese literature. My second supervisor, Professor Andrea Riemenschnitter, opened my eyes to the world of theoretical research. She not only welcomed me cordially to Zurich, but also enabled the joined doctoral supervision which finally resulted in the first joint doctoral degree in Chinese Studies granted by the University of Zurich and University of Warsaw. Her insightful remarks and more importantly, her inexhaustible enthusiasm for the topic, were essential to the completion of my thesis. The third member of my doctoral committee, Professor Bettina Dennerlein, supported me in refining my skills in the methods of gender studies. I would also like to thank all the members of the University Research Priority Program (URPP) “Asia and Europe” and of the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, who encouraged me in various ways and stimulated my study with thoughtful discussion. Finally, my very special thanks go to two “informal” supervisors of the thesis and experts in the field of modern Chinese poetry. Doctor Zhou Zan from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Professor Maghiel van Crevel from the University of Leiden, both were so kind to ensure me with their feedback that my work-in-progress was moving in a promising direction. I would not have been able to complete my dissertation without the financial support from various institutions. The URPP “Asia and Europe” provided me with a generous fellowship for the major part of my doctoral studies (2009-2012) and also financed my conference travel during this period. The participation in the URPP’s doctoral program was crucial for my academic development and I am grateful to my fellow doctoral students, post-docs and affiliated professors for the lively discussions which inspired my work. The final year of my doctoral studies was financed by the “Forchungskredit” scholarship funded by the University of Zurich. During my studies I also received financial support for academic visits and academic exchange from the Sino-Swiss Science and Technology Cooperation, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Graduate Campus of the University of Zurich. My acknowledgments would not be complete without expressing my gratitude to the Chinese poets and scholars who shared their views on poetry and life with me. I remain especially indebted to Zhai Yongming not only for her mesmerizing poetry, but also for her time and the patience with which she answered my questions. 3 Table of Contents Chapter One: Introduction……………………………………………………………….5 Literary body turn…………………………………………………………………………..5 Gender: established category of analysis between West and East?.......................................6 In search for a definition: theorizing women’s writing……………………………………12 Feminist imagination and écriture féminine.........................................................................17 From women’s writing to body writing……………………………………………………20 Gender and representation in the uneasy post-chronotopes…………………………………21 Gender and representation…………………………………………………………21 From the postcolonial perspective………………………………………………….24 Postmodern twist……………………………………………………………………27 Aims and methodological embeddedness…………………………………………………..29 Structure…………………………………………………………………………………….30 Chapter Two: Body Matters………………………………………………………………33 M apping the body in “sinophone” theory…………………………………………………...33 The shenti xiezuo (body writing) phenomen………………………………………………..34 Facing the Medusa: body writing and écriture féminine……………………………………46 Embodying the revolution…………………………………………………………………..51 Chapter Three: Corporeal Poetics: Zhai Yongming and women’s poetry since the 1980s…………………………………………………………………………………….58 Feminine tradition, women’s poetry and the female voice………………………………….58 In search of the female voice: Zhai Yongming’s “most delicate words”……………………76 Revisiting history…………………………………………………………………76 Changing body matters………………………………………………………………87 Most delicate words………………………………………………………………………….95 Chapter Four: Postmodern Somatography………………………………………………98 Surfaces…………………………………………………………………………………...98 Tensions…………………………………………………………………………………..102 The gender trouble in the jianghu………………………………………………………...104 Feminine “somagrams”.…………………………………………………………………..118 Writing the bodies of others………………………………………………………………127 Secrets of class abjection………………………………………………………………….131 Shifting corporeal discourses………………………………………………………….......135 Chapter Five: Stigmatexts…………………………………………………………...…..139 Branding…………………………………………………………………………………...139 Injuries……………………………………………………………………………………..142 4 Pain………………………………………………………………………………………...145 Stigma……………………………………………………………………………………...149 Eco- injuries………………………………………………………………………………...156 Who is afraid of Zheng Xiaoqiong?.……………………………………………………….160 Coda……………………………………………….……………………………………….165 Glossary……………………………………………….…………………………………...170 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………….174 5 Chapter 1 Introduction Literary body turn In the last decades of the twentieth century, the topic of the body gained prominence in Chinese literature and academic discourse. After the ferment of Maoist mobilisation had come to its end, the previously unquestioned domination of the revolutionary body proper lost much
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