Androgyny in Late Ming and Early Qing Literature by
The frequent appearance of androgyny in Ming and Qing literature has long interested scholars of late imperial Chinese culture. A flourishing economy, widespread education, rising individualism, a prevailing hedonism--all of these had contributed to the gradual disintegration of traditional gender roles in late Ming and early Qing China (1550-1750) and given rise to the phenomenon of androgyny. Now, Zuyan Zhou sheds new light on this important period, offering a highly original and astute look at the concept of androgyny in key works of Chinese fiction and drama from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. The work begins with an exploration of androgyny in Chinese philosophy and Ming-Qing culture. Zhou proceeds to examine chronologically the appearance of androgyny in major literary writing of the time, yielding novel interpretations of canonical works from The Plum in the Golden Vase, through the scholar-beauty romances, to The Dream of the Red Chamber. He traces the ascendance of the androgyny craze in the late Ming, its culmination in the Ming-Qing transition, and its gradual phasing out after the mid-Qing. The study probes deviations from engendered codes of behavior both in culture and literature, then focuses on two parallel areas: androgyny in literary characterization and androgyny in literati identity. The author concludes that androgyny in late Ming and early Qing literature is essentially the dissident literati's stance against tyrannical politics, a psychological strategy to relieve anxiety over growing political inferiority.
Classical Chinese Literature by 
The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature by 
The Last of the Whampoa Breed by
Stories born of the trials and heartache of exile in Taiwan.
Women's Poetry of Late Imperial China by
This study of poetry by women in late imperial China examines the metamorphosis of the trope of the "inner chambers" (gui), to which women were confined in traditional Chinese households, and which in literature were both a real and an imaginary place. Originally popularized in sixth-century "palace style" poetry, the inner chambers were used by male writers as a setting in which to celebrate female beauty, to lament the loneliness of abandoned women, and by extension, to serve as a political allegory for the exile of loyal and upright male ministers spurned by the imperial court. Female writers of lyric poetry (ci) soon adopted the theme, beginning its transition from male fantasy to multidimensional representation of women and their place in society, and eventually its manifestation in other poetic genres as well. Emerging from the role of sexual objects within poetry, late imperial women were agents of literary change in their expansion and complication of the boudoir theme. While some take ownership and de-eroticizing its imagery for their own purposes, adding voices of children and older women, and filling the inner chambers with purposeful activity such as conversation, teaching, religious ritual, music, sewing, childcare, and chess-playing, some simply want to escape from their confinement and protest gender restrictions imposed on women. Women's Poetry of Late Imperial China traces this evolution across centuries, providing and analyzing examples of poetic themes, motifs, and imagery associated with the inner chambers, and demonstrating the complication and nuancing of the gui theme by increasingly aware and sophisticated women writers.
The materials listed below are only some of the many available resources to Cal State East Bay students, staff & faculty via the University Libraries. Depending on the format (i.e. video, book, article), some materials might be available to access for free online via the library's streaming subscriptions, or you can borrow/check-out the item for free. Find more course materials in the Library's catalog.
FluentU Chinese: High quality video content, ranging from commercials to movie clips, with captions, transcripts, and vocabulary for personal practice.
Chinese Reading Practice: Short reading passages from popular literature with pronunciation guides and English translations.
HSK Flashcards: Web-based and downloadable flashcards for several vocabulary sets, including HSK (Hànyǔ Shuǐpíng Kǎoshì, the Chinese Proficiency test).
Mandarin Spot Chinese Annotation: Bookmarklet that creates annotations showing pinyin and English tanslations for Chinese characters
Marjorie Chan's Fonts for Windows and OS X: List of free Chinese character fonts for multiple platforms.
Dictionaries:
Chinese-English Dictionary: Searchable dictionary with options for English, pinyin, and Chinese queries.
Chinese Character Dictionary: Search for characters by radical/stroke order, as well as English, Cantonese, and pinyin.
nciku Online English-Chinese Dictionary: Search this dictionary using English, pinyin, radicals, and handwritten (mousewritten) characters. Also features custom vocabulary lists and quizzes.
Zhongwen Character Genealogy and Dictionary: Online version of Rick Harbaugh's well-regarded character dictionary.
-- From the Butler University Libraries (http://libguides.butler.edu/Chinese)
Calisphere is an incredible tool for locating free to access "photographs, documents, letters, artwork, diaries, oral histories, films, advertisements, musical recordings, and more". Below are some highlighted collections to explore!
The following is text taken directly from the "Chinese in California, 1850-1925" Bancroft Library website.
"This website offers a topical approach to the material presented in the Chinese in California digital archive. The resources represented are from The Bancroft Library and The Ethnic Studies Library, University of California, Berkeley; and The California Historical Library, San Francisco. Selections range in format, with books, pamphlets, prints, photographs, manuscripts, sheet music, etc. illustrating aspects of the story. Much of the history of the Chinese in California is embedded in resources that discuss California in a broader context, and thus a topical approach serves as the best way of gathering together the diverse materials presented here."
"The Chinese in California digital archive was developed in 1998-1999 as part of the Library of Congress' American Memory website, an online resource compiled by the Library of Congress National Digital Library Program. The Library of Congress American Memory website was retired in 2015 and is no longer available online."
Visit the website here: https://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/chineseinca/index.html
Access to the East Asia Library at Stanford Libraries is restricted to current Stanford ID cardholders. However, you can find digitized content like the "Books of folk rhymes by early Chinese immigrants" online.
Digitized books are accessible in SearchWorks and additional information about the collections can be found on their website: https://library.stanford.edu/eal
