This is a study of visuality in early modern and modern China. Its focus, however, is not so much on imagery per se but rather on how vision itself has been conceived, imagined, and deployed in a variety of discursive contexts. Of particular interest is how these discourses of vision have been used to articulate issues of gender and desire, and specifically processes of gendered subject formation.Through detailed readings of narrative works by eight authors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - ranging from the canonical to the popular to the esoteric - the study identifies three distinct constellations of visual concerns corresponding to the late imperial, mid-twentieth century, and contemporary periods, respectively. At the same time, however, it argues that those historical periodizations themselves do not reflect a smooth, unidirectional temporal movement; rather, they are the result of a complex process of retrospection and anticipatory projection. The goal of this volume is to use a focus on tropes of visuality and gender to reflect on shifting understandings of the significance of Chineseness, modernity, and Chinese modernity.

羅鵬(Carlos Rojas)

美國杜克大學中國文化研究中心、婦女研究中心、以及移動影像藝術研究中心副教授，致力於當代中國文學與藝術的研究。

除本書外，羅鵬尚著有《長城：一種文化史》（The Great Wall: A Cultural History），以及《離鄉病：當代中國的文化、疾病、與國家改革》（Homesickness: Culture, Contagion, and National Reform in Modern China）。曾與王德威合編《書寫台灣：新台灣文學史》（Writing Taiwan: A New Literary History），與周成蔭合編《反思中國大眾文化：經典的經典化》（Rethinking Chinese Popular Culture: Cannibalizations of the Canon）與《牛津中國電影手冊》（The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas），與白安卓(Andrea Bachner)合編的《牛津當代中國文學手冊》（The Oxford Handbook of Modern Chinese Literatures）也即將出版。

此外，他也是當代多本重要華文文學經典，如余華的《兄弟》、閻連科的《四書》、《受活》，以及黃錦樹之作品的英文譯者。