Innovation And Diversity ——Susan Mann’s Studies On Chinese Gender History

The beginning of Susan Mann’s academic path coincided with the era of dramatic changes in American history.In the transition of social history,new cultural history,and global history,Mann continued to broaden her research horizons,to expand research methods,to analyze and study the relationship between politics,economy,culture,and gender in China since the late Qing Dynasty.In the framework of gender theory,Mann investigated gender relations in the 18th to the 20th century Chinese society,as well as the material and cultural implications of the body.Her research results not only provide cases and ideas worthy of reference for the study of Chinese gender history,but also pose challenges to some traditional academic viewpoints.Thus,Mann’s research further proves that gender is an important analytical view for the study of Chinese history.This new theoretical framework provides a new approach to the writing of Chinese history.In her early research,influenced by the social history boom and the American Chinese history research tradition,Mann focused on the economy,politics and culture of Chinese society since the Qing Dynasty.However,the feminist wave sweeping the United States influenced Mann.In the mid-1980s,Mann turned to the study of Chinese gender history.Since then,guided by gender theory,she paid attention to and revealed the division of labor and status of the sexes in the family,the communication and association in the group,and the initiative and discipline in the country,by relying on historical materials such as local chronicles,genealogy,biographies,anthologies,and female poems.At the same time,under the influence of the new cultural history,Mann also paid attention to the body,which is the common material carrier of physical gender and social gender.Together with sex and gender,it has become an effective analysis category for Mann to observe how the Chinese regime and cultural forces continue to influence gender relations.In terms of methods,Mann examined the influence of economic development,implementation of national policies,population growth,cultural context and other factors on gender relations in the High Qing era through interdisciplinary research;by combining narrative and analysis,Mann introduced the revival of narrative history into the research of Chinese gender history in the 19th century,giving gender individuals an independent voice through historical imagination based on historical data;with the help of microscopic and macroscopic perspectives,Mann unearthed historical changes in the 18th and 20th centuries,and how they have affected the perception and treatment of gender and body by the Chinese people.Mann’s research on gender history based on the China-centered view and female perspective,challenged the "May Fourth" women’s historical view and the traditional historical staging,and discovered the lasting influence of political power and cultural power on sex and gender.In this process,the uniqueness of Chinese gender relations gradually became apparent.At the same time,Mann also emphasized the importance of male studies and body studies to the development of female history.All these provide a new path for Chinese academic circles to refer to and practice.However,Mann’s research on gender history tends to use cases of upper social groups as examples,and her background in American historiography also hinders her understanding of the political system,cultural context and gender relations of Chinese society.Mann’s research achievements,together with some deficiencies and limitations,are issues that Chinese academic circles should pay attention to and think about in the process of practicing the localization of gender history.