Backward Glances: Contemporary Chinese Cultures and the Female Homoerotic Imaginary

305 Pages·2010·5.031 MB·English

by  Fran Martin

Backward Glances
asia-pacific:
culture, politics,
and society
. . .
Editors: Rey Chow,
H. D. Harootunian, and
Masao Miyoshi
Backward Glances
. . . . . . . . .

Contemporary Chinese Cultures
and the Female Homoerotic
Imaginary
Fran Martin
Duke University Press
Durham and London
2010
© 2010 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States
of America on acid-free
paper ♾ Designed by
Amy Ruth Buchanan
Typeset in Quadraat by Tseng
Information Systems, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-
in-Publication Data appear
on the last printed page
of this book.
For Carol

. . .
Contents
Acknowledgments . . . ix
Note on Translations and Transliterations . . . xi
Introduction: Love and Remembrance . . . 1
1 Tragic Romance: The Chinese Going-In Story . . . 29
2 Voluble Ellipsis: Second-Wave Schoolgirl Romance in
Taiwan and Hong Kong . . . 49
3 Postsocialist Melancholia: “Blue Sky Green Sea” . . . 75
4 No Future: Tomboy Melodrama . . . 93
5 Television as Public Mourning: Taiwan’s Sad Young
Women . . . 118
6 Critical Presentism: New Chinese Lesbian Cinema . . . 147
Epilogue . . . 180
Appendix: Interview with Shi Tou . . . 187
List of Chinese Characters . . . 199
Notes . . . 205
Filmography . . . 255
Selected Bibliography . . . 259
Index . . . 281

. . .
Acknowledgments
The research toward this book was made possible by an Australian Research
Council Discovery Projects grant. Thanks to the many friends and colleagues
who in different ways helped this book come into being: AD, Tomoko Aoyama,
Chris Berry, Marion J. Campbell, Karen Chang Hsiu-min, Lisa Chen Xiuyu,
Chen Xue, Yushin “Deadcat” Chen, Wen Cheng, Rey Chow, Chu T’ien-hsin,
Naifei Ding, Hiromi Tsichuya Dollase, Brett Farmer, Garfield, Han Jia-yu,
Chris Healy, Lai Zheng-zhe, Larissa Heinrich, Josephine Ho, Jubin Hu, Alison
Huber, Lucifer Hung, Lucetta Kam, Olivia Khoo, Helen Hok-sze Leung, Pik-ki
Leung, Tania Lewis, Li Yu, Jenpeng Liu, Joyce Liu, Yan Yan Mak, Mark McLel-
land, Meaghan Morris, Lisa Palmer, Amie Parry, Greg Pflugfelder, Shi Tou,
Jessie Shih, Teri Silvio, Carmen Tong, John Treat, Yin Wang, James Welker,
Angela Wong Yin Ni, Cuncun Wu, Taeko Yamada, and Zhuang Mingzhu.