Out of Place: The New Woman and Chinese Cinema

Prof. Mao Jian will speak at Harvard University on the the new woman in Chinese Cinematic Arts.

Discussant: Prof. David Der-wei Wang, EALC, Harvard University

This is a study of the relationship between young women and the long Chinese revolution as portrayed on screen. From "revolution plus beauty" to "The Red Detachment of Women", from the "New Woman" to the "New Revolutionary Artist", from "the barefoot doctor" to "the bad female cadre", this talk, centering on Ruan Lingyu's and Xie Jin's films, attempts a typology of female characters by comparing young women characters from the left cinema of the thirties and forties with those of the socialist and post-socialist eras.

Mao Jian is Associate Professor at East China Normal University. Her specialities are Chinese Cinema and modern and contemporary Chinese Literature. Dr. Mao received her Ph.D. in Literature from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. She is also a columnist in multiple magazines and newspapers in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore.