Volume 6 Issue 4
Dec.  2023
Turn off MathJax
Article Contents
PAN Wen. Feminist Orientalism: Tracing the Tradition of Feminist Orientalism in the Anglo-American Discourse on Civilization[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2023, 6(4): 54-67. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20236404
Citation: PAN Wen. Feminist Orientalism: Tracing the Tradition of Feminist Orientalism in the Anglo-American Discourse on Civilization[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2023, 6(4): 54-67. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20236404

Feminist Orientalism: Tracing the Tradition of Feminist Orientalism in the Anglo-American Discourse on Civilization

doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20236404
  • Received Date: 2023-07-10
  • Accepted Date: 2023-11-21
  • There is a long-standing tradition of feminist orientalism in the Anglo-American civilization and this tradition is manifested in various phenomena of cultural politics. There are two kinds of references regarding the term of “feminist orientalism.” Its basic meaning refers to the orientalism practiced by women in the Anglo-American society, including their consumption, imagination, and even creation of “the orient”in order to empower themselves in the struggle for equality against white men. The other reference of this term is the orientalism of the West operated through female discourse, women's problems and feminist agendas. The feminist orientalism in the second sense, which is imposed on the oriental society by the capitalist imperialism, is characterized by the convergence of three elements—the East, the West and women—into a binary structure consisting of the lower East and the higher West. In the meantime, this binary structure appeals to human emotions, especially when people lack in sufficient information about the East. Feminist orientalism had served the imperialist cause in history. A tradition of feminist orientalism can be identified in Anglo-American history: firstly, it was the Asian commodities and the oriental arts, represented by chinaware and chinoiserie, that provided white women with cultural space of their own and potential opportunities for liberation, thus contributing to the construction of their subjectivity; secondly, white women travel writers, represented by Lady Montagu, unveiled the East through their “imperial eyes,” which differed from those of white men, and therefore, feminist orientalism was no longer just domestic, but became transnational and imperial; thirdly, female religion workers of the colonial period developed and reinforced this tradition, and by rendering the East inferior to the West, this tradition joined the discourse of the Western cultural imperialism. It is important for us to trace the source of this tradition in the light of historical experience over the past century in order to demystify orientalism and construct a new intercultural discourse for the new era.
  • loading
  • [1]
    Bahramitash,Roksana.“The War on Terror,Feminism Orientalism and Orientalist Feminism:Case Studies of Two North American Bestsellers.”Critique:Critical Middle Eastern Studies 14(Summer 2005).
    [2]
    Brumberg,Joan Jacobs.“Zenanas and Girlless Villages:The Ethnology of American Evangelical Women,1870-1910.”Journal of American History 69,no.2(September 1982).
    [3]
    Cahill,Samara Anne.Intelligent Souls?Feminist Orientalism in Eighteenth-century English Literature.Lewisburg:Bucknell University Press,2019.
    [4]
    Jenkins,Eugenia Zuroski.A Taste for China:English Subjectivity and the Prehistory of Orientalism.Oxford University Press,2013.
    [5]
    Lee,Janet.“Between Subordination and She-tiger:Social Constructions of White Femininity in the Lives of Single,Protestant Missionaries in China,1905-1930.”Women’s Studies International Forum,Vol.19,no.6.
    [6]
    Lowe,Lisa.Critical Terrains:French and British Orientalisms.Ithaca and London:Cornell University Press,1991.
    [7]
    Mohanty,Chandra Talpade.Feminism without Borders:Decolonizing Theory,Practicing Solidarity.London:Duke University Press,2003.
    [8]
    Montagu,Mary Wortley.Letters from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu with an Introduction by R.Brimley Johnson.London:J.M.Dent&Sons Ltd,1906.
    [9]
    Naghibi,Nima.Rethinking Global Sisterhood:Western Feminism and Iran.Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press,2007.
    [10]
    Porter,David.The Chinese Taste in Eighteenth-Century England.Cambridge University Press,2010.
    [11]
    Said,Edward W.Orientalism.London and Henley:Routledge&Kegan Paul,1978.
    [12]
    Thomson,James C.and Stanley,Stanley,Peter W.Peter W.Sentimental Imperialists:The American Experience in East Asia.New York:Harper&Row Publishers,1981.
    [13]
    Yegenoglu,Meyda.Colonial Fantasies:Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism.Cambridge University Press,1998.
    [14]
    Yoshihara,Mari.Embracing the East:White Women and American Orientalism.Oxford University Press,2003.
    [15]
    Zonana,Joyce.“the Sultan and the Slave:Feminist Orientalism and the Structure of Jane Eyre.”Signs.18,no.3(Spring,1993).
    [16]
    (美)爱德华·W.萨义德:《文化与帝国主义》,李琨译:北京:三联书店,2016年。[Edward W.Said,Wenhua yu diguozhuyi(Culture and Imperialism),trans.LI Kun,Beijing:Joint Publishing Company,2016,133.]
    [17]
    (美)彼得·J.卡赞斯坦主编:《英美文明与其不满者:超越东西方的文明身份》,魏玲译,上海人民出版社,2018年。[Katzenstein,Peter J.“Yingmei xifang wenming”(The West as Anglo-America).Translated by WEI Ling.In Yingmei wenming yu qi bumanzhe:Chaoyue Dongxifang de wenming shenfen(Anglo-America and Its Discontents:Civilizational Identities beyond West and East).Edited by Peter J.Katzenstein.Shanghai:Shanghai People’s Publishing House,2018.]
    [18]
    (美)简·亨特:《优雅的福音:20世纪初在华的美国女传教士》,李娟译,北京:三联书店,2014年。[Hunter,Jane.Youya de fuyin:20 shijichu zaihua de meiguo nvzhuanjiaoshi(The Gospel of Gentility:American Women Missionaries in Turn-of-the Century China).Translated by LI Juan.Beijing:the Jointly Publishing Company,2014.]
    [19]
    (美)玛丽·路易斯·普拉特:《帝国之眼:旅行书写与文化互化》,方杰,方宸译,南京:译林出版社,2017年。[Pratt,Mary Louise.Diguo zhi yan:lvxing shuxie yu wenhua huhua(Imperial Eyes:Travel Writing and Transculturation).Translated by FANG Jie and FANG Chen.Nanjing:Yilin Press,2017.]
    [20]
    (美)芮塔·菲尔斯基:《现代性的性别》,陈琳译,南京:南京大学出版社,2020年。[Felski,Rita.Xiandaixing de xingbie(The Gender of Modernity).Translated by CHEN Lin.Nanjing:Nanjing University Press,2020.]
  • 加载中

Catalog

    通讯作者: 陈斌, bchen63@163.com
    • 1. 

      沈阳化工大学材料科学与工程学院 沈阳 110142

    1. 本站搜索
    2. 百度学术搜索
    3. 万方数据库搜索
    4. CNKI搜索

    Article Metrics

    Article views (146) PDF downloads(25) Cited by()
    Proportional views
    Related

    /

    DownLoad:  Full-Size Img  PowerPoint
    Return
    Return