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Signature: _____________________________ ______________ Haipeng Zhou Date “Expressions of the Life that is within Us” Epistolary Practice of American Women in Republican China By Haipeng Zhou Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts _________________________________________ [Advisor’s signature] Catherine Ross Nickerson Advisor _________________________________________ [Advisor’s signature] Kimberly Wallace-Sanders Advisor _________________________________________ [Member’s signature] Rong Cai Committee Member Accepted: _________________________________________ Lisa A. Tedesco, Ph.D. Dean of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies ___________________ Date “Expressions of the Life that is within Us” Epistolary Practice of American Women in Republican China By Haipeng Zhou M.A., Beijing Foreign Studies University, 2000 B.A., Beijing University of Science and Technology, 1997 Advisor: Catherine Ross Nickerson, PhD. Advisor: Kimberly Wallace-Sanders, PhD. An abstract of A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts 2011 Abstract “Expressions of the Life that is within Us” Epistolary Practice of American Women in Republican China By Haipeng Zhou Reciprocal exchanges, interactions that influence a person’s life and development, are the focus of my dissertation on a group of progressive American women. Among them are Ida Pruitt, Helen Snow, and Maud Russell, who stayed in China in the 1920s and 1930s, engaging in various progressive activities as social worker, YWCA secretary and independent journalist respectively. Letter writing and reading was an indispensable part of their life in China. It served as a vital link between their diverse Chinese experience and American homeland, it set up a free stage for these letter writers to create and perform various selves, it served as a key factor to define the letter writers’ sense of community, and it provided a unique lens to see a transnational history with emphasis on gender and race. The purpose of this project is to unravel the significance of the discursive epistolary practice of these women. It examines through epistolary representations the internal and external standards in evaluating women’s new and traditional roles in this historical period. More specifically, my dissertation will focus on four key themes: progressive American women’s community in China, their self-representation of changing personas and selves in reaction to various external values, the influence of their letter writing on the perception of China in the US, and the impact of their epistolary practice on international feminist practices and cross-cultural understanding. To explore these themes, I investigate the foreign community in China and its epistolary culture in general, as well as conduct specific case studies. I argue that the letters of the progressive women reveal unique transnational as well as local social networks established through their professional, domestic and social activities. The epistolary legacies left by these middle-class American women open new windows to see the past from an enlightening perspective. They demonstrate that individuals’ experience can break through ideological barriers and influence imbalance among big territorial powers. Through analysis of their letters, this project asserts these progressive women’s own voices in history, and sets new angles in assessing their work and impacts. “Expressions of the Life that is within Us” Epistolary Practice of American Women in Republican China By Haipeng Zhou M.A., Beijing Foreign Studies University, 2000 B.A., Beijing University of Science and Technology, 1997 Advisor: Catherine Ross Nickerson, PhD. Advisor: Kimberly Wallace-Sanders, PhD. A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts 2011 Acknowledgements Like the women characters in my dissertation whose life and development were greatly influenced by interactions with the people around them, I am also deeply indebted to many people who have guided and helped me through the research and writing of this project. My dissertation committee – co-advisors Kate Nickerson and Kimberly Wallace- Sanders, and committee member Rong Cai – have all given me vital support throughout the years of my graduate study in their distinct ways. Without their advice and encouragement the completion of this project would not have been possible. Early in my graduate years when I discussed with Dr. Nickerson my research interest in intercultural encounters seen through American women’s experience in China, she brought into my attention the collections at the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women. I did my first archival trip afterward and found the trove of letters. In a sense, this project started to really grow after that enlightening discussion with Dr. Nickerson. I cannot remember how many “writer’s block” moments I had in this project since I had so many. But I do remember each of the crunch times when Dr. Wallace-Sanders dragged me out of my dark hole of writer’s block and self-abasement, showed me new light and sent me to the right direction in writing. Dr. Rong Cai’s expertise in Chinese studies was also essential for my project. I could always rely on her wise advice to build a comparative perspective between the American women characters and Chinese women of the same period. I am really grateful and fortunate to have these remarkable and caring professors on my committee, and thank them from the bottom of my heart for their time, mentorship and trust. I would also like to thank other professors who have taught me much about good scholarship. In particular, Dr. Mary Brown Bullock, Dr. Kevin Corrigan, Dr. Michael Elliot, Dr. Regine Jackson and Dr. Betty Parker-Smith, all of them gave me much needed support and encouragement at different stages of my project. I am grateful to Emory University’s Laney Graduate School and my home department Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts for generous financial and institutional support that made my graduate study and research trips possible. The Mellon Graduate Teaching Fellowship provided me not only an extra year of funding to help me complete this work, but also professional development training. I also want to say a big thank-you to my host institution, Dillard University, in particular, Dean Danille Taylor and Ms. Zena Ezeb, who helped me to settle down in New Orleans in the fellowship year, Raymond Vrazel, who patiently answered my numerous questions about teaching in the first semester at Dillard. I am also indebted to many staff members at Emory University. Tracy Blandon guided me through various requirements of graduate school, and gave me moral support in time of need. Leah Carswell gave patient and kind support for all my internal grant and fellowship applications at Emory University as well as during my fellowship year at Dillard University. The staff and advisors at the International Student and Scholars Program took good care of my needs as an international student. I also thank the Schlesinger Library and the Rockefeller Archive Center for generous grants. I sincerely appreciate the archives and manuscripts libraries which gave me permission to use their materials, and all the archivists who assisted me in my research for this project. Several archivists and administrators deserve mention here. Thomas Rosenbaum, Camilla Harris and Charlotte Sturm of the Rockefeller Archive Center made me consider the RAC as a researcher’s haven. Elena Danielson, retiree of the Hoover Institution Archives, made special trips from home to campus just to meet with me and talk about her memroy of Helen Foster Snow – Elena’s passion about Helen Snow’s collection also infused this project. John Murphy of the L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Susan Landry and Lynda Leahy of the Schlesinger Library, Carol Leadenham of the Hoover Instittion Archives all gave special assistance to this project. I am grateful to several scholars who I met during the archival trips and who showed their care for this project. They are Dr. Paul Hyer, Helen Praeger Young, Dr. Eric Hyer. I also thank Ms. Sheril Bischoff, niece of Helen Snow for giving me her insightful perepective to this project. Meeting with these people made my research more interesting. Many friends walked through with me in this dissertation journy, and made this process more meaningful. Joachim Kurtz, Dan Liu, Rui Ma, Hui May and Qing Ye, all sheltered me at different points with accomodation, food and love in time of need. Their love and faith was more important than they will ever know. Donna S. Mote was my consistent cohort support and always told me that I was not alone in the writing process. Many other friends gave concrete help and moral support towards the completion of this work. Among them are Berrak Bahadir, Samuel Zebulon Baker, Sheri Davis, Kazumi Hazegawa, Ju-Hwan Kim, Manuel-Julian R Montoya, Ann E. Vandenberg and Lillien Waller. James D. Ross, Amy Bryan and Pia Kostner made my year in New Orleans with warm memories.