Louise Edwards | The University of New South Wales (original) (raw)

Articles and Chapters by Louise Edwards

Women Warriors and National Heroes: Global Histories, 2020

Open Access at Bloomsbury https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?docid=b-9781350140301

Asian Studies Review, 2016

This article examines the contested history of International Women’s Day (IWD) in China during th... more This article examines the contested history of International Women’s Day (IWD) in China during the first half of the twentieth century. It explores the processes of cooption and subsumption that have diminished the “international” in IWD in the Chinese context as the feminist movement confronted powerful forces of nation building, party building and militarised warfare as battles waged between Japan and China, and between the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalist Party. It argues that IWD was put to use by myriad competing groups and these appropriations diminished the event’s original goal of forging international solidarity among women around the world.

Asian Studies, 2015

The Hollywood star system became a significant part of film production and consumption around the... more The Hollywood star system became a significant part of film production and consumption around the world from the 1920s-including in China during the Golden Age of Shanghai cinema. This American technology was localised and expanded to suit Chinese contexts and achieved far more than increasing sales of cinema tickets. In this article I argue that the "Shanghai star system" created a new social and ideological space within which Chinese people, particularly women, were able to assume new, public personae that accorded with their desires for cosmopolitan modernity. The process also created new moral worlds in which feminine visibility, self-adornment and leisure consumption were desirable attributes and came to be recognised for their signification of modernity and global connections. I draw my evidence from the highly successful Linglong magazine, which was devoted to promoting 'noble entertainment' for its target female readership and dedicated about half of each issue to films and commentary about stars. The article explores typologies of patriotic stars, chaste and vulnerable stars as well as Do-It-Yourself stars that included readers' photos and stories that borrowed the grammar of Hollywood stardom.

Humanities Australia, 2020

The creaTion of the new Republic of China, Asia's first republic, in 1912, required more than jus... more The creaTion of the new Republic of China, Asia's first republic, in 1912, required more than just a reshuffling of political leaders. Artists, intellectuals, teachers and journalists all participated in promoting new Republican values to the people who had transitioned, rather suddenly, from subjects of an Emperor to citizens in a Republic. In the first decades after 1912, reformers of all professions promoted new ideas about family structures, work relations, and educational systems in a wave of optimism about the new political system. They sought to help ordinary Chinese embrace the opportunities presented in their changing times and work to build a modern, globallyengaged China and a revitalised Chinese culture. Chinese people, these reformers reasoned, needed to be 'woken up' so that they would be able to participate in the building of their new, modernising Republic. 1 Artists were at the forefront of this program to promote the values of a modern republic through their contributions to newspapers, magazines and advertisements. Shen Bochen (1889-1919 or 1920?) and Ding Song (1891-1969), two of China's most famous commercial artists of these years, modernised a centuriesold genre, the One Hundred Illustrated Beauties, to provide a direct contrast with the old imperial values by inviting 'before and after' comparisons of beauties 'old and new'. 2 Through the circulation of sketches

Journal of Asian Studies, 72.3 (2013): 563-86.

During the War of Resistance against Japan (1937–45), China’s leading cartoon artists formed patr... more During the War of Resistance against Japan (1937–45), China’s leading cartoon artists formed patriotic associations aimed at repelling the Japanese military. Their stated pro- paganda goals were to boost morale among the troops and the civilian population by cir- culating artwork that would ignite the spirit of resistance among Chinese audiences. In keeping with the genre, racialized and sexualized imagery abounded. The artists created myriad disturbing visions of how militarized violence impacted men’s and women’s bodies differently. By analyzing the two major professional journals, National Salvation Cartoons and War of Resistance Cartoons, this article shows that depictions of sexual violence inflicted on Chinese women were integral to the artists’ attempts to arouse the spirit of resistance. By comparing their depictions of different types of bodies (Chinese and Japanese, male and female, soldiers’ and civilians’) the article argues that the cartoonists believed that the depiction of sexually mutilated Chinese women would build resistance and spur patriotism while equivalent depictions of muti- lated male soldiers would sap morale and hamper the war effort. The article concludes with a discussion about the dubious efficacy of propaganda that invokes a hypersexua- lized, masculine enemy other.

The Hollywood star system became a significant part of film production and consumption around the... more The Hollywood star system became a significant part of film production and consumption around the world from the 1920s- including in China during the Golden Age of Shanghai cinema. This American technology was localised and expanded to suit Chinese contexts and achieved far more than increasing sales of cinema tickets. In this article I argue that the ＂Shanghai star system＂ created a new social and ideological space within which Chinese people, particularly women, were able to assume new, public personae that accorded with their desires for cosmopolitan modernity. The process also created new moral worlds in which feminine visibility, self-adornment and leisure consumption were desirable attributes and came to be recognised for their signification of modernity and global connections. I draw my evidence from the highly successful Linglong magazine, which was devoted to promoting 'noble entertainment' for its target female readership and dedicated about half of each issue to films and commentary about stars. The article explores typologies of patriotic stars, chaste and vulnerable star...

This article examines 70 years of debate about Ding Ling’s 1941 influential short story about a w... more This article examines 70 years of debate about Ding Ling’s 1941 influential short story about a woman spy, “When I was in Xia Village”. In the article I show that the re-absorption of “our” female spies into post-conflict solidarity narratives is a fraught process. For national governments the difficulty lies in asserting the moral legitimacy of their rule in the face of evidence about their deployment of women as sex spies. For national populations the difficulty lies in the desire to construct reassuring victory stories within which peacetime normalcy can be restored. The diverse exegesis around Ding Ling’s “Xia Village” reveal that even decades after the hostilities cease “our” women sex spies still require an explanation to communities seeking to consolidate or “remember” their national virtue. The evolution of this process of “explaining” reveals the ongoing importance of sexual morality to governance in current-day China. Specifically, through the analysis of the critiques of “Xia Village” the article demonstrates that female chastity has been and continues to be an important commodity in establishing and sustaining popular perceptions of the moral virtue of the PRC as a nation, and the CCP as its legitimate government.

Nan Nü: Men, Women and Gender in China, 12 (2010): 175-214., Dec 2010

For over 1500 years the Hua Mulan story has remained a popular source of inspiration for writers ... more For over 1500 years the Hua Mulan story has remained a popular source of inspiration for writers of plays, poems, and novels as well as films and television dramas. e sustained interest in Mulan rests in part with her daring cross-dressing and the humour that this challenge to gender norms provokes. is article shows that the various versions of the Mulan story also reveal the gendered nature of a key tension within the Chinese social and moral universe—how individuals manage the competing demands from their families and the central state. e article traces the transformations of her story from its inception in the Northern Wei ballad through to the 2010 cinema versions in order to trace the evolution of gendered norms of loyalty, patriotism, virtue and filial piety.

Pacific Historical Review, vol. 81, no. 4 (2012): 567-601., 2012

This article explores images of the United States featured in the 1930s Shanghai women’s magazine... more This article explores images of the United States featured in the 1930s Shanghai women’s magazine Linglong. This imagined America reflected a reorientation in ideas about how to be simultaneously modern and Chinese. The United States be- came a symbolic location for Linglong’s readers as they grappled with personal con- cerns in their negotiations with families and communities about appropriate feminine behavior for Chinese women seeking to be modern and cosmopolitan. These readers found in the depiction of American life answers to their anxieties about appropriate limits for their modern city lifestyle. The imagined America provided convenient boundaries for readers and editors alike. Linglong presented a vision of unbridled, limit-free American lifestyles as “the extreme,” allowing China’s modern women to plot their behavior along an imagined continuum stretching between American depravity and the prison of Confucian morality.

Pacific Historical Review, vol. 69, no. 4 (2000): 617-638, 2000

Most scholars erroneously identify 1949 as “the year” Chinese women gained suffrage rights since ... more Most scholars erroneously identify 1949 as “the year” Chinese women gained suffrage rights since 1949 marks the ascension to power of the Chinese Communist Party. In fact, Chinese women won suffrage rights in 1947 with the implementation of the Constitution of the Republic of China. This error reflects more than a simple problem of historical method. It reveals two key understated conventions of the scholarly narrative underpinning studies of women’s suffrage around the world. First, the error highlights the importance of temporal closure in our scholarly practice—the narratives of women’s suffrage are inscribed along a linear path that ceases at ta particular year/month/day suffrage was won. Second, the mistake points to the dependency of our current research style on geopolitical closure—the history of women’s suffrage relies heavily on the existence of a stable nation-state with prescribed national borders and consistent government systems. These narrative conventions pose particular difficulties for scholars working on histories of the ‘developing world’ and have contributed to the dearth of research on non-Western suffrage struggles.
The exploration of the Chinese women suffrage movement provides several opportunities: first, to rediscover one of the world's most important women's suffrage campaigns; second, to bring into sharp relief the unstated narrative conventions that have sustained excellent writing on western suffrage movements; third, to explore the problem China poses for imperatives of geopolitical closure; fourth to analyse the role histories of suffrage can perform in the enunciation of a national narrative of legitimate governance; and firth, to reveal the tensions inherent in the current conception of the existence of a necessary division between nationalist and feminist causes.

Modern China, vol 26, no 2, Apr 2000

Downloaded from pursued by men; men's attitudes and actions were on trial here" (Chatterjee, 1993... more Downloaded from pursued by men; men's attitudes and actions were on trial here" (Chatterjee, 1993: 135). The transformations, real or perceived, in women thereby became a focus for debates about the state of the nation and its progress. In both China and India, the symbolic modern woman was part of a modernizing discourse that made possible the imagining of a new nation.

Twentieth Century China, Vol. XXIV, no. 2 (1999): 69-105, Apr 1999

Journal of Intercultural Studies, vol. 21, no. 3, 2000

in F. Martin and L. Heinrich (eds) Embodied Modernities: Corporeality, Representation and Chinese Cultures (Hawaii University Press, 2006), pp. 146-61. , 2006

Perspective (Muenster: LIT, 2005). This essay explores the opposition faced by the women's suffra... more Perspective (Muenster: LIT, 2005). This essay explores the opposition faced by the women's suffrage movement in China to their campaign to have equal participation in parliamentary politics for both men and women -funü canzheng yundong. The essay explains the comparative rapidity of the women's suffrage victories in China -albeit fragmented and patchy in coverage -as resulting in part from the ineffectiveness of the anti-suffrage lobbyists. While the success of the campaigns is primarily due to the strategic perseverance of the women's suffrage activists, it is also important to consider the strength of the opposition the women faced in any analysis of the comparative success of their movement to appreciate its full historical significance. Brian Harrison argues that the study of anti-suffragism places the suffrage campaigns "firmly into context" (Harrison 1978:14). Moreover, in her 1994 article on the state of academic research on women's suffrage, Carole Pateman raised the concern that little was known about struggles for suffrage outside of the Western world. She also pointed out that there was equally little known about the nature of the opposition to women's suffrage across cultures (Pateman 1994:346). How does a specific cultural and historical context affect the nature of the public debates about women's participation in politics? This essay aims to contribute to what will no doubt be the ongoing and lengthy procedure of filling this gap.

Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles and Reviews, vol. 12 (1990): 69-81., 1990

Women Warriors and National Heroes: Global Histories, 2020

Open Access at Bloomsbury https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?docid=b-9781350140301

Asian Studies Review, 2016

Asian Studies, 2015

Humanities Australia, 2020

Journal of Asian Studies, 72.3 (2013): 563-86.

The Hollywood star system became a significant part of film production and consumption around the... more The Hollywood star system became a significant part of film production and consumption around the world from the 1920s- including in China during the Golden Age of Shanghai cinema. This American technology was localised and expanded to suit Chinese contexts and achieved far more than increasing sales of cinema tickets. In this article I argue that the ＂Shanghai star system＂ created a new social and ideological space within which Chinese people, particularly women, were able to assume new, public personae that accorded with their desires for cosmopolitan modernity. The process also created new moral worlds in which feminine visibility, self-adornment and leisure consumption were desirable attributes and came to be recognised for their signification of modernity and global connections. I draw my evidence from the highly successful Linglong magazine, which was devoted to promoting 'noble entertainment' for its target female readership and dedicated about half of each issue to films and commentary about stars. The article explores typologies of patriotic stars, chaste and vulnerable star...

Nan Nü: Men, Women and Gender in China, 12 (2010): 175-214., Dec 2010

Pacific Historical Review, vol. 81, no. 4 (2012): 567-601., 2012

Pacific Historical Review, vol. 69, no. 4 (2000): 617-638, 2000

Modern China, vol 26, no 2, Apr 2000

Twentieth Century China, Vol. XXIV, no. 2 (1999): 69-105, Apr 1999

Journal of Intercultural Studies, vol. 21, no. 3, 2000

in F. Martin and L. Heinrich (eds) Embodied Modernities: Corporeality, Representation and Chinese Cultures (Hawaii University Press, 2006), pp. 146-61. , 2006

Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles and Reviews, vol. 12 (1990): 69-81., 1990

Bibliography of English Translations and Critiques of Contemporary Chinese Fiction 1945-92, 1993

This is the first exploration of women’s campaigns to gain equal rights to political participatio... more This is the first exploration of women’s campaigns to gain equal rights to political participation in China. The dynamic and successful struggle for suffrage rights waged by Chinese women activists through the first half of the twentieth century challenged fundamental and centuries-old principles of political power. By demanding a public political voice for women, the activists promoted new conceptions of democratic representation for the entire political structure, not simply for women. Their movement created the space in which gendered codes of virtue would be radically transformed for both men and women

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Anti-Qing Rebels:
Conceiving Women’s Citizenship, 1898–1911
3. Women’s Search for Political Equality in the
New Republic, 1912–1914
4. Suffrage and Provincial Constitutions:
Building a New Culture, 1919–1923
5. Nationalists, Communists, and the National Assembly
Movement, 1924–1926
6. Feminists in the Nanjing Decade, 1927–1936
7. Realizing the Power of Difference:
Quotas, War, and Elections, 1936–1948
8. Conclusion

See Allison Rottman's review in 27.3 (2009) http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/lhr/27.3/br_26.html

Women’s Movements in Asia is a comprehensive study of women’s activism across Asia. With chapter... more Women’s Movements in Asia is a comprehensive study of women’s activism
across Asia. With chapters written by leading international experts, it provides
a full overview of the history of feminism, as well as the current context of the
women’s movement in twelve countries: the Philippines, China, Indonesia, Japan,
Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Korea, India and Pakistan.
For each of these countries the manner in which feminism changes according
to cultural, political, economic and religious factors is explored. The contributors
investigate how national feminisms are inﬂuenced by transnational factors, such
as the women’s movements in other countries, colonialism and international
agencies. Each chapter also considers what Asian feminists have contributed to
global theoretical debates on the woman question, the key successes and failures
of the movements and what needs to be addressed in the future.

Contents:
1 Asian feminisms: women’s movements from the Asian
perspective 1
M I N A R O C E S
2 Feminism and the women’s movement in the world’s largest
Islamic nation 21
S U S A N B L A C K B U R N
3 ‘Rethinking ‘the Filipino woman’: a century of women’s
activism in the Philippines, 1905–2006 34
M I N A R O C E S
4 Chinese feminism in a transnational frame: between
internationalism and xenophobia 53
L O U I S E E D W A R D S
5 Transnational networks and localized campaigns: the
women’s movement in Singapore 75
L E N O R E L Y O N S
6 Crossing boundaries: transnational feminisms in
twentieth-century Japan 90
B A R B A R A M O L O N Y
7 Feminism, Buddhism and transnational women’s movements
in Thailand 110
M O N I C A L I N D B E R G F A L K
8 Following the trail of the fairy-bird: the search for a uniquely
Vietnamese women’s movement 124
A L E S S A N D R A C H I R I C O S T A
9 The Hong Kong women’s movement: towards a politics
of difference and diversity 144
A D E L Y N L I M
10 Military rule, religious fundamentalism, women’s
empowerment and feminism in Pakistan 166
A N D R E A F L E S C H E N B E R G
11 Mapping a hundred years of activism: women’s movements
in Korea 189
S E U N G - K Y U N G K I M A N D K Y O U N G H E E K I M
12 ‘Riding a buffalo to cross a muddy ﬁeld’: heuristic approaches
to feminism in Cambodia 207
T R U D Y J A C O B S E N
13 Rights talk and the feminist movement in India 224
S U M I M A D H O K

Radio Australia Interview:
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/asiapac/stories/201004/s2875310.htm

Choice Review:
Women's movements in Asia: feminisms and transnational activism, ed. by Mina Roces and Louise Edwards. Routledge, 2010. 276p bibl index; ISBN 9780415487023, 170.00;ISBN9780415487030pbk,170.00; ISBN 9780415487030 pbk, 170.00;ISBN9780415487030pbk,41.95; ISBN 9780203851234 e-book, $41.95. Reviewed in 2011may CHOICE.

These excellent essays on women's movements in 12 Asian countries are written by carefully selected authors who represent a variety of disciplines, including interdisciplinary women's and gender studies, and locations in Europe, Asia, the US, and Australia. They all insist that Asian feminisms are much different from those in the West (which are considered culturally inappropriate in the Asian context); in two of the countries, there is not even a word for "feminism." The authors maintain the necessity of a home-grown national feminism, including indigenism. They note limits of political regimes, religion, class, and the power of colonialism and nationalist movements in shaping the specific movements, as well as the transnational nature of many of them. The individual essays are very well conceived, and it is interesting to note issues of commonality (importance of culture, history of gender relations, uncertain politics) as well as those of difference (power of elite women, involvement of NGOs such as the YWCA), and agendas that range from health care for sex workers to participation in Buddhist hierarchy, and legal- and rights-based philosophies under more or less friendly regimes. Specifically noteworthy is the excellent index, often overlooked in edited volumes. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. -- P. LeClerc, St. Lawrence University

Celebrity is a pervasive aspect of everyday life and a growing field of academic inquiry. While t... more Celebrity is a pervasive aspect of everyday life and a growing field of academic inquiry. While there is now a substantial body of literature on celebrity culture in Australia, Europe and the Americas, this is the first book-length exploration of celebrity in China. It examines how international norms of celebrity production interact with those operating in China. The book comprises case studies from popular culture (film, music, dance, literature, internet), official culture (military, political, and moral exemplars) and business celebrities. This breadth provides readers with insights into the ways capitalism and communism converge in the elevation of particular individuals to fame in contemporary China. The book also points to areas where Chinese conceptions of fame and celebrity are unique.

1 Celebrity/China 1
Elaine Jeffreys and Louise Edwards
2 Military Celebrity in China: 21
The Evolution of ‘Heroic and Model Servicemen’
Louise Edwards
3 China’s Celebrity Mothers: 45
Female Virtues, Patriotism and Social Harmony
Yingjie Guo
4 Accidental Celebrities: 67
China’s Chastity Heroines and Charity
Elaine Jeffreys
5 Celebrity Philanthropy: 85
The Cultivation of China’s HIV/AIDS Heroes
Johanna Hood
6 Jet Li: 103
‘Wushu Master’ in Sport and Film
Mary Farquhar
7 Literary Celebrity in China: 125
From Reformers to Rebels
Shuyu Kong
8 Flexible Celebrity: 145
A Half-Century of Miao Pop
Louisa Schein
9 Jin Xing: 169
China’s Transsexual Star of Dance
Gloria Davies and M. E. Davies
10 China’s Celebrity Entrepreneurs: 193
Business Models for ‘Success’
David J. Davies
11 China’s Internet Celebrity: 217
Furong Jiejie
I. D. Roberts

Reviews:
Asia Sentinel: Paul Karl Lukacs: http://asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2549&Itemid=594

creativeasia: Michael Keane http://creativeasia.squarespace.com/book-review/
October 1st Posting

"This book examines how the politics of dress has been incorporated in constructions of nationhoo... more "This book examines how the politics of dress has been incorporated in constructions of nationhood in both Asia and the Americas, and reveals how politicians and political regimes (including tribal, revolutionary, authoritarian, colonial, and democratic) manipulate sumptuary practices in order to create national identities, to legitimise hierarchies of power or to build personal political identities. In tackling these broad themes over two centuries, the editors and contributors grapple with gender politics; in particular, how men and women’s dress reflect their political and economic position in the nation-states.

This collection of pioneering essays – the first volume in the Sussex Library of Asian Studies – explores the transnational nature of dress in a host of different locations and shows how changing dress codes have long been conversations between cultures. It brings the politics of dress into contemporary times and engages directly with the topical issues of dress legislation in the twenty-first century. Country case studies include: China, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Native America, Latin America and Argentina.

Chapter 1
Trans-national Flows and the Politics of Dress in Asia and the Americas
Mina Roces and Louise Edwards 1
Chapter 2
Gender, Nation and the Politics of Dress in Twentieth-Century Philippines
Mina Roces 19
Chapter 3
Dressing for Power: Scholars’ Robes, School Uniforms and Military
Attire in China
Louise Edwards 42
Chapter 4
Refashioning Civilization: Dress and Bodily Practice in Thai Nation-Building
Maurizio Peleggi 65
Chapter 5
Gender, Citizenship and Dress in Modernizing Japan
Barbara Molony 81
Chapter 6
Identity, Nation and Islam: A Dialogue about Men’s and Women’s Dress in Indonesia
Jean Gelman Taylor 101
Chapter 7
“Dressed in a Little Brief Authority”: Clothing the Body Politic in Burma
Penny Edwards 121
Chapter 8
Power Dressing on the Prairies: The Grammar of Blackfoot Leadership Dress, 1750–1930
Blanca Tovías 139
Chapter 9
Nationalism and National Dress in Spanish America
Rebecca Earle 163
Chapter 10
Refashioning the Inca: Costume, Political Power and Identity in Late Bourbon Peru
David Cahill 182
Chapter 11
Wigs, Weapons, Tattoos and Shoes: Getting Dressed in Colonial Amazonia and Brazil
Barbara A. Sommer 200
Chapter 12
Fabricating Specimen Citizens: Nation Building in Nineteenth-Century Mexico
Magali M. Carrera 215
Chapter 13
Urban Expressions of Solidarity: Fashioning Citizenship in Argentina
Regina A. Root 236"

is an analysis of Chinese prescriptions of gender as represented in... more is an analysis of Chinese prescriptions of gender as represented in Cao Xueqin's famous eighteenth century Chinese novel of manners, or .
Drawing on feminist literary critical methods it examines Qing notions of masculinity and femininity, including themes such as bisexuality, motherhood, virginity and purity, and gender and power.

The academic study of women in Asia developed in the 1970s as a result of the convergence of the ... more The academic study of women in Asia developed in the 1970s as a result of the convergence of the then emerging disciplines of Asian Studies and Women’s Studies. Initially, work on women in Asia grew from traditional branches of learning such as history, anthropology, politics, and literary studies. More recently, it has incorporated cutting-edge areas of academic endeavour, including critical theory and new thinking on sexuality, labour, health, media, and material culture. As research in and around the area flourishes as never before, this new four-volume collection from Routledge meets the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of a rapidly growing and ever more complex corpus of scholarly literature.

Drawing together in four volumes the key research which has shaped the dynamic academic field that explores women’s lives in the Asian region over the past four decades, and edited by two leading scholars, Women in Asia provides users with a comprehensive survey of all the major issues relating to women in the world’s fastest changing and most culturally diverse region.

Volume I (‘Women and Political Power’) brings together material which explores the engagement by women in Asia with the law (e.g. struggles to acquire equal pay and inheritance rights), formal political power (e.g. structural blocks to their participation in government), and education. This volume also gathers vital contributions on women’s activism (e.g. feminist groups, comfort women’s groups, housewives’ unions, and transnational activism).

Volume II (‘Redefining Working Women’) collects research around topics including: women and unions; women in paid and unpaid labour (e.g. the gendered division of labour in Asian households); women as migrant workers; women in development; prostitution and trafficking; and women as carers.

Volume III (‘Health and Sexuality’) brings together the best—and most influential—scholarship on contentious themes such as the increasing imbalance in sex ratios in the region as a result of female infanticide, sex-selective abortions, and the kidnapping of wives. Research gathered in this volume also covers reproductive health; violence against women (e.g. female genital mutilation, dowry burnings, and honour killings); same-sex attraction and diverse gender identity; and medicine and health care (including work on traditional medicine and mental-health problems specific to women in the region, such as the high suicide rates in China and South Asia).

The material collected in Volume IV (‘Constructions of the Feminine’) focuses on women in the family (e.g. gendered role expectations); women in religion; Western perceptions of Asian women (e.g. stereotypes of passivity); women in the arts; and official discourses on the feminine (such as the promotion by Asian governments of gender roles).

Women in Asia is fully indexed and each of the four volumes has a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editors, which provides extended reading lists and places the material in its historical and intellectual context. It is an essential work of reference and is destined to be valued by scholars and students—as well as policy-makers and community activists—as a vital one-stop research resource.

Including chapters on Indonesia, India, Thailand, China, the Philippines, Japan, Malaysia, Korea,... more Including chapters on Indonesia, India, Thailand, China, the Philippines, Japan, Malaysia, Korea, Vietnam and international suffrage connections, Women’s Suffrage in Asia engages in debates on suffrage in the region by raising issues unique to the country case studies presented. It explains why the history of suffrage is neglected in the nationalist historiography and untangles the connections between culture, nationalism and colonialism in the context of women’s struggles for suffrage.

Contents
1. Introduction: Orienting the Global Women’s Suffrage Movement
Louise Edwards and Mina Roces
2. Is the suffragist an American colonial construct? Defining ‘the Filipino woman’ in colonial Philippines
Mina Roces
3. Chinese women’s campaigns for suffrage: Nationalism, Confucianism and political agency
Louise Edwards
4. Women’s Suffrage and Democracy in Indonesia
Susan Blackburn
5. Women’s Suffrage in Viêt Nam
Micheline R. Lessard
6. Citizenship and Suffrage in Interwar Japan
Barbara Molony
7. Expanding their realm: women and public agency in colonial Korea
Ken Wells
8. The Politics of Women’s Suffrage in Thailand
Tamara Loos
9. Tradition, Law and the Female Suffrage Movement in India
Gail Pearson
10. Settler Anxieties, Indigenous Peoples and Women’s Suffrage in the Colonies of Australia, New Zealand and Hawai‘i, 1888 to 1902
Patricia Grimshaw

Women in Asia: Tradition, Modernity and Globalisation surveys the transformation in the status of... more Women in Asia: Tradition, Modernity and Globalisation surveys the transformation in the status of women since 1970 in a diverse range of nations: Malaysia, China, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines, India, Taiwan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and Burma. Within these 13 national case studies the book presents new arguments about being women, being Asian and being modern in contemporary Asia.

Recent social changes in women's place in society are untangled in recognition that not all change is 'progress' and that not all 'modernity' enhances women's status. The authors suggest that the improvements in women's status within the Asian region vary dramatically according to the manner in which women interact with the particular economic and ideological forces in each nation.

Each contributor has focussed on a particular country in their area of expertise. They present innovative arguments relating to the problem of 'being women' in Asia during a period of dramatic social and political changes. Each national case study explores key social and economic markers of women's status such as employment rates, wage differentials, literacy rates and participation in politics or business. The effects of population control programs, legislation on domestic violence and female infanticide, and women's role in the family and the workforce are also discussed. The book poses questions as to how women have negotiated these shifts and in the process created a 'modern' Asian woman.

Specialists from a variety of disciplines including history, anthropology, sociology, demography, gender studies and psychology grapple with the complexities and ambivalences presented by the multiple faces of the modern Asian woman.

Contents
1. Contesting gender narratives, 1970–2000
Mina Roces & Louise Edwards
2. Becoming modern in Malaysia: women at the end of the twentieth century
Maila Stivens
3. The status of women in a patriarchal state: the case of Singapore
Jasmine Chan
4. Women in the People’s Republic of China: new challenges to the grand gender narrative
Louise Edwards
5. Diversity and the status of women: the Indian experience
Ruchira Ganguly-Scrase
6. Negotiating modernities: Filipino women 1970-2000
Mina Roces
7. Indonesian Women—from Orde Baru to Reformasi
Kathryn Robinson
8. Rhetoric or reality?: contesting definitions of women in Korea
Sasha Hampson
9. Breaking the patriarchal paradigm: Chinese women in Hong Kong
C.Tang, W.T. Au, Y.P. Chung and H.Y. Ngo
10. Being women in Japan 1970-2000
Elise K. Tipton
11. Women in Taiwan: linking economic prosperity and
women’s progress
Lan-hung Nora Chiang
12. Exploring women’s status in contemporary Thailand
Bhassorn Limanonda
13. Militarism, civil war and women’s status: a Burma case study
Janell Mills
14. Re-gendering Vietnam: from militant to market socialism
Esta Ungar

Anson Chan, Former Chief Secretary, Former Legislative Councillor Tanya Chan, Legislative Council... more Anson Chan, Former Chief Secretary, Former Legislative Councillor
Tanya Chan, Legislative Councillor
Scarlett Pong, District Councillor

in discussion with Louise Edwards

• The benefits of female political leadership
• The institutional and cultural barriers, norms and stereotypes women face in their political careers
• Whether women need to adapt their leadership styles to succeed as a political candidate and in government
• How we can increase the number of women in politics in Hong Kong

Edited volumes are a common feature of academic publishing but they are fraught with problems tha... more Edited volumes are a common feature of academic publishing but they are fraught with problems that can limit both their intellectual impact and anticipated benefits to career advancement. In this seminar Professor Edwards outlines common problems editors face in managing the editing process and provides a series of practical strategies to minimize their occurrence. She also addresses core issues about the ‘value’ of editing volumes in the current academic scene.

Topics discussed include:
· What makes a coherent edited volume?
· When is it worth doing edited volumes?
· Common features of ‘weak’ edited volumes
· Writing the concept paper
· Soliciting contributions from authors
· Managing communication with authors
· Maintaining control of the quality of chapters
· Strategies for reducing editorial work
· Benefits and dangers of editing academic books
· Sole editing vs Co-editing
· Addressing a publisher’s concerns about edited volumes

Since 2000 Professor Edwards has published 9 edited volumes with a range of different publishing houses and has advised on several more in her role as Series Editor for the Asian Studies Association of Australia’s Women in Asia series with Routledge.

See: http://hku-hk.academia.edu/LouiseEdwards/Books

Women in Asia Series: http://www.routledge.com/books/research/ASAA_Women_in_Asia_Series

She is Professor of Modern China Studies in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures and Fellow of both the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia (FASSA) and the Australian Academy of Humanities (FAHA).

Celebrity is a pervasive aspect of everyday life and a growing field of academic inquiry. There i... more Celebrity is a pervasive aspect of everyday life and a growing field of academic inquiry. There is now a substantial body of literature Oil celebrity culture in Australia, Europe and the Americas. This literature covers a wide variety of fields, including: film, literature, popular music, political, and sports stardom; celebrity CEOs, and the relationship between the media and celebrity. I All of these texts seek to understand why the production and consumption of celebrity has become such a common feature of life in recent decades. Some commentators regard celebrity as epitomizing the trivial and deplorable aspects of popular culture (e.g. Boorstin 1972). But increasing numbers of others are concerned to understand the way cultural and economic shifts have helped create a mass-mediated celebrity industry and also to examine the social functions of celebrity, particularly its relation to new forms of individual and community identity (Hardey 2005; Marshall 1997, 2004, 2006; Redmond and Holmes 2007; Turner 2004).

Pacific Historical Review, 2012

This article explores images of the United States featured in the 1930s Shanghai women's maga... more This article explores images of the United States featured in the 1930s Shanghai women's magazine Linglong. This imagined America reflected a reorientation in ideas about how to be simultaneously modern and Chinese. The United States became a symbolic location for Linglong's readers as they grappled with personal concerns in their negotiations with families and communities about appropriate feminine behavior for Chinese women seeking to be modern and cosmopolitan. These readers found in the depiction of American life answers to their anxieties about appropriate limits for their modern city lifestyle. The imagined America provided convenient boundaries for readers and editors alike. Linglong presented a vision of unbridled, limit-free American lifestyles as “the extreme,” allowing China's modern women to plot their behavior along an imagined continuum stretching between American depravity and the prison of Confucian morality.

Women's Studies International Forum, 2002

Women's Studies International Forum, 2007

... Louise Edwards a , E-mail The Corresponding Author. ... 2 Similarly, an article in the ACWF&a... more ... Louise Edwards a , E-mail The Corresponding Author. ... 2 Similarly, an article in the ACWF's newspaper, China women's news (Zhongguo funü bao) of July 2002 declared, that while there had been some improvements China was still a long way from the UN's hard target of ...

Modern China, 1990

One of China's most outstanding literary works, Cao Xueqin's Qing dynasty novel Honglou... more One of China's most outstanding literary works, Cao Xueqin's Qing dynasty novel Honglou meng (The Story of the Stone), is imbued with a textual complexity that has elicited a wide variety of scholarly analyses. Indeed, such a polyphonic novel eludes a single, authorita-tive ...

Asian Studies Review, 1997

... 7 For a detailed analysis of the survey of students' perception of their own needs and i... more ... 7 For a detailed analysis of the survey of students' perception of their own needs and interests conducted during 1994-95, see Kam Louie and Louise Edwards, "Curricula for Background Speakers ... "I think they benefited most by me, as a native speaker of English teaching them ...

Asian Studies Review, 1994

Chinese for Dinkum Aussies Kam Louie University of Queensland Louise Edwards Australian Catholic ... more Chinese for Dinkum Aussies Kam Louie University of Queensland Louise Edwards Australian Catholic University The family of Chinese languages is the third most commonly spoken in Australian homes (other than English), accounting for 1.6 per cent of the total population. ...

Journal of Intercultural Studies, 2000

ABSTRACT This paper explores the emergence of indigestion metaphors within contempor-ary Australi... more ABSTRACT This paper explores the emergence of indigestion metaphors within contempor-ary Australian discourse on immigration and race. It establishes connections between the indigestion metaphor and the more traditional tropes used to describe immigrationÐinun-dation, ...

Continuum-journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 1999