A Study Of The Relationship Between The Writing Of Women's Biographies And The Imagining Of State-Nation In The Late Qing Dynasty

Taking as its focus the writing of the heroines' biographies in the late Qing Dynasty, this dissertation is designed to explore the two- or multi-folded articulations between the modern nationality discourse and the feminine discourse. On the one hand, the modern nationality discourse in the late Qing Dynasty, mainly driven by the enlightenment of th e female, took as its goal to construct a modern state-nation. On the other hand, the fe male visualized by the dominant modern nationality discourse considered it justified for them to be identified as a gender-based community. As a result, the nationality discours e and the female discourse were interlocked into a relationship of two- or multi-folded articulation. Given that the standard analysis framework cannot forge a platform for a sa tisfactory analysis of the above-mentioned relationship, this dissertation is to, from the p erspective of the evolution of the narration modes employed for the heroines'biographie s, discuss the role of the woman-oriented biographic narration in the making of the nati onals and the imagining of the nation in the late Qing Dynasty.What is first discussed is the close relationship between the nationality and the femal e in the late Qing Dynasty, with focus being Liang Qichao and his masterpieces in this field, including his work Women's Education and his translation work Madame Roland: Biography. In Women's Education, Liang offered his definition of women's work, which not only covered the pattern change of the traditional extended family from the patriarch y system to the western nuclear family system, but also implied an incubation of labour division by gender. And when translating Madame Roland: Biography, Liang summed up Madame Roland's political contribution as the Mother of Modern Heroes. Therefore, it's safe to say the enlightenment of the female advocated by reformers such as Liang got s ome obvious space to be filled in although it was inherited and developed by the femin ists.The following to note is that the women's biographies were chiefly disseminated by o ffprint or special column. What comes first in this part is a historical review of how th e Chinese got to understand the western female, especially the female elite; the second i s the examination of the ways for the western women's biographies to be screened and translated in the late Qing Dynasty. The point in so doing is to demonstrate that the ch aracters in the western women's biographies were mainly elites devoted themselves to e ducation, medical treatment, religion, charity, etc, to show the conversion from political heroes to social celebrities when writing of the heroes in the late Qing Dynasty, and to prove the role of these imported social celebrities in stimulating the imagining of the na tional.The early 20th century witnessed the construction of woman soldiers such as Hua Mula n, Liang Hongyu and Qin Liangyu into national heroes. Based on the features such as t he exclusion of the Man nationality, the highlighting of the Han Nationality, and the att empt to sway away the dualistic antagonism of genders in narration as well, what will be argued here is the employed narrative strategy serves to sew up the contradictions an d puzzles.