Xiaofei Kang | The George Washington University (original) (raw)
Papers by Xiaofei Kang
China Perspectives, 2009
for their helpful comments on different versions of this article. I would also like to thank the ... more for their helpful comments on different versions of this article. I would also like to thank the He family, Li Quan, Suolangta, Liu Qirong and all the laopopo at Guanyin tang who offered generous help and hospitality in Songpan. 2. In the Songpan region, most temples are run by local lay people with virtually no presence of resident monks and nuns. In southeast China there seem to be much closer connections between lay women's religious practices and Buddhist or Daoist monasteries. See, for example, Kenneth Dean, Lord of the Three in One: The Spread of a Cult in
This article seeks to bridge the hitherto disconnected studies of the " woman question " and " re... more This article seeks to bridge the hitherto disconnected studies of the " woman question " and " religious question " in the twentieth-century Chinese revolution. It focuses on the issues of women's liberation and anti-superstition in Communist propaganda through Xiao Erhei jiehun (Young Blackie gets married), a popular novel by the Communist writer Zhao Shuli (1906-70) published in 1943, and examines its impact in comparative context in wartime Communist base areas. Drawing on the religious culture of the author's native southern Shanxi, this revolutionary classic promoted freedom of marriage through attacking " feudal superstition. " The article compares wartime religious and revolutionary culture in Zhao's rural Shanxi with the CCP's cultural and political agendas in its headquarters of Yan'an. Despite its immense success, the novel's original messages of women's liberation and anti-superstition gradually became marginal in the early PRC years – both discourses gave way to the party-state's higher ideological goal of class struggle, and were subsumed into the metanarrative celebrating the absolute leadership of the Communist Party and Mao Zedong.
Over the last several decades, there has been a voluminous amount of scholarly literature about t... more Over the last several decades, there has been a voluminous amount of scholarly literature about the transformation of women and gender, as well as about the reconstruction of Chinese religions in the context of twentieth-century Chinese modernity. The relationship and intersection of these two separated fields, however, remain uncharted territory. This essay is an introduction to three studies which address this lacuna. It places these writings in the existing scholarship on themes related to women, gender, and religion, and outlines the various ways in which they bring together the two hitherto disconnected facets of academic research on women and religion in the study of modern China, with a focus on the period from the 1900s to 1950s. Together they highlight the gender dynamics of the twentieth-century construction of Chinese religions, and forge new gendered understandings of Chinese modernity. Keywords gender – women and religion – superstition – modernity – ethnicity and minority nationalities
Journal of Asian Studies, 2009
Page 1. Nature and Power: A Global History of the Environment. By Joachim Radkau (New York, Cambr... more Page 1. Nature and Power: A Global History of the Environment. By Joachim Radkau (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2008) 430 pp. 80.00cloth80.00 cloth 80.00cloth24.99 paper Interest in the interaction of humans and their environment ...
Modern China, 2009
Page 1. 227 Author's Note: Research and fieldwork for this article, as part of an ongoin... more Page 1. 227 Author's Note: Research and fieldwork for this article, as part of an ongoing collaborative research project, were funded by a St. Mary's College of Maryland Development Grant, a Library of Congress Kluge Fellowship ...
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 2011
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 2011
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 2011
Books by Xiaofei Kang
This book is the first long-term study of the Sino-Tibetan borderland. It traces relationships an... more This book is the first long-term study of the Sino-Tibetan borderland. It traces relationships and mutual influence among Tibetans, Chinese, Hui Muslims, Qiang and others over some 600 years, focusing on the old Chinese garrison city of Songpan and the nearby religious center of Huanglong, or Yellow Dragon. Combining historical research and fieldwork, Xiaofei Kang and Donald Sutton examine the cultural politics of northern Sichuan from early Ming through Communist revolution to the age of global tourism, bringing to light creative local adaptations in culture, ethnicity and religion as successive regimes in Beijing struggle to control and transform this distant frontier.
China Perspectives, 2009
for their helpful comments on different versions of this article. I would also like to thank the ... more for their helpful comments on different versions of this article. I would also like to thank the He family, Li Quan, Suolangta, Liu Qirong and all the laopopo at Guanyin tang who offered generous help and hospitality in Songpan. 2. In the Songpan region, most temples are run by local lay people with virtually no presence of resident monks and nuns. In southeast China there seem to be much closer connections between lay women's religious practices and Buddhist or Daoist monasteries. See, for example, Kenneth Dean, Lord of the Three in One: The Spread of a Cult in
This article seeks to bridge the hitherto disconnected studies of the " woman question " and " re... more This article seeks to bridge the hitherto disconnected studies of the " woman question " and " religious question " in the twentieth-century Chinese revolution. It focuses on the issues of women's liberation and anti-superstition in Communist propaganda through Xiao Erhei jiehun (Young Blackie gets married), a popular novel by the Communist writer Zhao Shuli (1906-70) published in 1943, and examines its impact in comparative context in wartime Communist base areas. Drawing on the religious culture of the author's native southern Shanxi, this revolutionary classic promoted freedom of marriage through attacking " feudal superstition. " The article compares wartime religious and revolutionary culture in Zhao's rural Shanxi with the CCP's cultural and political agendas in its headquarters of Yan'an. Despite its immense success, the novel's original messages of women's liberation and anti-superstition gradually became marginal in the early PRC years – both discourses gave way to the party-state's higher ideological goal of class struggle, and were subsumed into the metanarrative celebrating the absolute leadership of the Communist Party and Mao Zedong.
Over the last several decades, there has been a voluminous amount of scholarly literature about t... more Over the last several decades, there has been a voluminous amount of scholarly literature about the transformation of women and gender, as well as about the reconstruction of Chinese religions in the context of twentieth-century Chinese modernity. The relationship and intersection of these two separated fields, however, remain uncharted territory. This essay is an introduction to three studies which address this lacuna. It places these writings in the existing scholarship on themes related to women, gender, and religion, and outlines the various ways in which they bring together the two hitherto disconnected facets of academic research on women and religion in the study of modern China, with a focus on the period from the 1900s to 1950s. Together they highlight the gender dynamics of the twentieth-century construction of Chinese religions, and forge new gendered understandings of Chinese modernity. Keywords gender – women and religion – superstition – modernity – ethnicity and minority nationalities
Journal of Asian Studies, 2009
Page 1. Nature and Power: A Global History of the Environment. By Joachim Radkau (New York, Cambr... more Page 1. Nature and Power: A Global History of the Environment. By Joachim Radkau (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2008) 430 pp. 80.00cloth80.00 cloth 80.00cloth24.99 paper Interest in the interaction of humans and their environment ...
Modern China, 2009
Page 1. 227 Author's Note: Research and fieldwork for this article, as part of an ongoin... more Page 1. 227 Author's Note: Research and fieldwork for this article, as part of an ongoing collaborative research project, were funded by a St. Mary's College of Maryland Development Grant, a Library of Congress Kluge Fellowship ...
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 2011
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 2011
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 2011
This book is the first long-term study of the Sino-Tibetan borderland. It traces relationships an... more This book is the first long-term study of the Sino-Tibetan borderland. It traces relationships and mutual influence among Tibetans, Chinese, Hui Muslims, Qiang and others over some 600 years, focusing on the old Chinese garrison city of Songpan and the nearby religious center of Huanglong, or Yellow Dragon. Combining historical research and fieldwork, Xiaofei Kang and Donald Sutton examine the cultural politics of northern Sichuan from early Ming through Communist revolution to the age of global tourism, bringing to light creative local adaptations in culture, ethnicity and religion as successive regimes in Beijing struggle to control and transform this distant frontier.