Gender, Discourse, and the Self in Literature: Issues in Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong

As a cultural construct, gender is fictional and imagined, yet gender is also real in its ideological and representational effects on the formation of self and identity. The fiction behind the fictional, which many accept as truth, is what's most intriguing. Critiquing the fictive nature of socially accepted gender values, this volume unravels the strategies writers and filmmakers adopt in their (de)construction of the gendered self in three different Chinese communities: mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Writing from the vantage points of film, literature, and gender studies, contributors adapt western gender discourse to map the construction and representation of self and identity in the social contexts of contemporary China.