Translating Feminisms in China

Book excerpt: This volume, which brings together articles by scholars and activists in China, Japan, Canada and the US in multiple disciplines, seeks to illuminate the problems and possibilities involved in translating feminism from the metropolitan ‘West’ to a locale rife with its own ideas about gender, class, the body and sexuality. Furthermore, these articles showcase the centrality of gender in the formation of modern China by demonstrating the extent to which translated feminisms – whatever they mean – have transformed the terms in which modern Chinese understand their own subjectivities and histories. This book is essential reading for students, academics and general readers interested in East Asia, comparative women’s history, feminist texts and the politics of translation.