Individual Listing

HUMANITIES SOCSCI
University of California
Riverside, CA 92521

Wu, Yenna

Professor of Chinese
Director of Asian Languages

College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

Comparative Literature & Foreign Languages


Biography

Yenna Wu is one of the first late-imperial Chinese fiction specialists to carry out rigorous, in-depth research on the representation of gender dynamics. She has published six books and about forty journal articles on various topics in Chinese literature, as well as many translations and book reviews. She has also contributed articles to a number of edited books such as The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, Volume 2 (1998), The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation (2000), and The Columbia History of Chinese Literature (2001). Her forthcoming book, The Great Wall of Confinement (co-authored with Philip F. Williams, Univ. of California Press, 2004), is the most comprehensive study of China's prison camps to date. After receiving her B.A. in English and European literature, Professor Wu studied comparative literature at the University of California, Los Angeles and received her M.A. in East Asian Studies. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1986, and began directing the Chinese Program and teaching Chinese literature and language at the University of Vermont (1986-1992). Joining the faculty at UC Riverside in 1992, she now teaches Chinese literature and language. In addition to literature courses in English such as "Great Novels of China" and "Family and Gender in the Chinese Short Story," she teaches a number of literature courses in Chinese, which she designed specifically for very advanced heritage students. She has also designed a separate track for first-year Mandarin heritage students and has been developing suitable instructional materials for them. For years she has worked on curricular development and pedagogical innovation. To incorporate more computer-aided instruction into pedagogy, she recently formatted her co-authored Chinese language textbook, Chinese the Easy Way, into a streaming-audio web-site. Professor Wu actively served on many committees, including the Executive Committee, the Committee on International Education, the Committee on Committees, and the Steering Committee of the University of California Consortium on Language Learning and Teaching. She chaired the interdepartmental Committee in Asian Studies in 1996, and served as director of the East Asian Languages and Civilizations Program in 1996-1997. She was elected to the Executive Board (1996-1999), and then as President (1998-1999), of the Western Conference of the Association for Asian Studies (WCAAS), the largest division of the Association for Asian Studies. She has given numerous lectures at various important conferences, and has successfully convened an interdisciplinary conference on the Chinese labor camp (January 15, 2000). Prof. Wu has been directing the Asian Languages and Civilizations Program at UCR since 2002, and currently serves on the Executive Committee.

Former Institution

University of Vermont; Harvard University; University of California, Los Angeles

Degrees

B.A. English and European Literature 1978

National Taiwan University

M.A. Oriental Languages 1981

University of California, Los Angeles

Ph.D. East Asian Languages and Civilizations 1986

Harvard University

Awards

University of California , Riverside , Center for Ideas and Society, Resident Faculty Fellowship, Winter 2001
Conference Grant, University of California , Riverside Center for Ideas and Society, 1999-2000
Conference Grant, University of California , Riverside Presley Center for Crime and Justice Studies, 1999-2000
University of California Humanities research Institute Resident Fellowship, Fall 1999
University of California Pacific Rim Research Grant (principal investigator), 1996-1998


Research Area

Chinese Literature and Culture; Gender, Narrative and Genre Studies; Sino-Western Comparative Studies; Chinese Language Pedagogy and Translation.

Publications

Books
• The Chinese Virago: A Literary Theme. Cambridge: Harvard University Council on East Asian Studies, 1995. 312 pp.
• The Lioness Roars: Shrew Stories from Late Imperial China. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. East Asia Series, 1995. 156 pp.
• Zhongguo funü yu wenxue lunji, diyi ji (Critical Essays on Chinese Women and Literature, Volume One), edited with Philip F. Williams. Taipei: Daw Shiang Publishing Co., 1999. iii+357 pp.
• Chinese the Easy Way, [link to http://chinesetheeasyway.ucr.edu] co-authored with Philip F. Williams. Hauppauge, NY: Barron's Educational Series, 1999. xvi+343 pp.
• Ameliorative Satire and the Seventeenth-Century Chinese Novel, Xingshi yinyuan zhuan--Marriage as Retribution, Awakening the World. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1999. xii+407 pp.
• Zhongguo funü yu wenxue lunji, di’er ji (Critical Essays on Chinese Women and Literature, Volume 2), edited with Philip F. Williams. Taipei: Daw Shiang Publishing Co., 2001.
Book in Press
• The Great Wall of Confinement: The Chinese Prison Camp Through Contemporary Fiction and Reportage. [link to http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9294.html] By Philip F. Williams and Yenna Wu. University of California Press, forthcoming 2004.


Selected Articles
• “Refining Feminist Strategies in Chinese Literary Criticism: Representations of Female Agency in Wang Anyi's Lapse of Time (Liushi).” American Journal of Chinese Studies 9.1(April 2002): 95-120.
• "The `Communication Gap' Between Chinese Feminology and Western Feminism and Its Implications for Feminist Readings of Chinese Literature." Tamkang Review: A Quarterly of Comparative Studies Between Chinese and Foreign Literatures 32.2 (Winter 2001): 69-111.
• "Rethinking Postcolonialist Assumptions and Portrayals of Cannibalism in Modern Chinese Fiction." Tamkang Review: A Quarterly of Comparative Studies Between Chinese and Foreign Literatures 31.3 (Spring 2001): 15-39.
• "Pitfalls of the Postcolonialist Rubric in the Study of Modern Chinese Fiction Featuring Cannibalism: From Lu Xun's 'Diary of a Madman' to Mo Yan's Boozeland." Tamkang Review: A Quarterly of Comparative Studies Between Chinese and Foreign Literatures 30.3 (Spring 2000): 51-87.
• "Moral Ambivalence in the Portrayals of Gegu in Late Imperial Chinese Literature." In Chen-main Wang, ed., Ming Qing wenhua xinlun [New Directions in the Study of Late Imperial History and Literature] (Taipei: Wen-chin Publishing Co., 2000), pp. 247-274.
• "The Satiric Mode in Some Chinese Short Stories From the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Centuries." Journal of the Southwest Conference on Asian Studies 1.1 (October 1999): 47-78.
• "Re-examining the Genre of the Satiric Novel in Ming-Qing China." Tamkang Review: A Quarterly of Comparative Studies Between Chinese and Foreign Literatures 29.4 (Summer 1999): 1-27.
• "Satiric Elements in Chinese Xiaoshuo, Drama, and Oral Literature and Performance." Tamkang Review: A Quarterly of Comparative Studies Between Chinese and Foreign Literatures 29.3 (Spring 1999): 1-45.
• "Xingshi yinyuan zhuan ji qi yinguo baoying sixiang de tanxing yunyong" [Xingshi yinyuan zhuan and its ingenious use of the concept of karmic retribution]. Dalu zazhi [The Continent Magazine, Taipei, Taiwan] (March 1999): 128-138.
• "Can Satire Be Merciful?: The Case of the Sixteenth-century Classic Jin Ping Mei (The Golden Lotus)." Chinese Culture 39.4 (December 1998): 89-120.
• "Dream Encounters and Intimations of Transcendence: Water Margin's Influence on Dream of the Red Chamber.” Selected Papers of the 1997 Southwest Conference on Asian Studies (Fall 1998): 11-27.
• "In Search of Satire in Classical Chinese Poetry and Prose." Tamkang Review: A Quarterly of Comparative Studies Between Chinese and Foreign Literatures 28.4 (Summer 1998): 1-39.
• "Satiric Realism from Jin Ping Mei to Xingshi yinyuan zhuan: The Fortunetelling Motif." Chinese Culture 39.1 (March 1998): 147-171.
• "From History to Allegory: Surviving Famine in the Xingshi yinyuan zhuan." Chinese Culture 38.4 (December 1997): 87-120.
• "Reading Jin Ping Mei as a Satire." Tamkang Review: A Quarterly of Comparative Studies Between Chinese and Foreign Literatures 28.1 (Autumn 1997): 1-48.
• "'Great Mother,' the Dream Journey, and the Search for Utopia in Three Ming-Qing Novels." Tamkang Review: A Quarterly of Comparative Studies Between Chinese and Foreign Literatures 27.4 (Summer 1997): 477-523.
• "Venturing Beyond the Domestic Sphere: Suggestions of Proto-Feminist Thought in Ming-Qing Fiction." Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association 32.1 (February 1997): 61-94.
• "Changing Trends: Some Methodological Issues in the Study of Chinese Vernacular Fiction at American Universities." Tamkang Review: A Quarterly of Comparative Studies Between Chinese and Foreign Literatures 27.3 (Spring 1997): 267-291.
• "Outlaws' Dreams of Power and Position in Shuihu zhuan." Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 18 (December 1996): 45-67.
• "Her Hide for Barter: Xi Langxian's Model of Self-Sacrifice in The Rocks Nod Their Heads (Shi dian tou)." Tamkang Review: A Quarterly of Comparative Studies Between Chinese and Foreign Literatures 27.2 (Winter 1996): 127-182.
• "Morality and Cannibalism in Ming-Qing Fiction." Tamkang Review: A Quarterly of Comparative Studies Between Chinese and Foreign Literatures 27.1 (Autumn 1996): 23-46.
• "The Bean Arbor Frame: Actual and Figural." Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association 30.2 (1995): 1-32.
• "The Anti-hero in the Xingshi yinyuan zhuan." Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association 28.3 (1993): 17-34.
• "Pu Songling de 'Jiangcheng' yu Rang du zhou zhi bijiao" [A Comparison of Pu Songling's "Jiangcheng" and Rang du zhou]. Pu Songling yanjiu [Pu Songling Studies] (Shandong, China) 1 (1992): 102-108.
• "The Debunking of Historical Heroes in Idle Talk Under the Bean Arbor." Selected Papers in Asian Studies (Western Conference of the Association for Asian Studies), n. s., no. 43 (1992): 1-27.
• "Zhenshun jielie zugou ma?--you nü'er shu kan gudai dui youzhi funü zhi zhongshi" [Is Being Chaste and Submissive Sufficient?--On the High Regard for Women of Wisdom in Traditional Educational Handbooks for Women]. Jiuzhou xuekan [The Chinese Culture Quarterly] 5.1 (1992): 123-28.
• "The Interweaving of Sex and Politics in Zhang Xianliang's Half of Man Is Woman." Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association 27.1/2 (1992): 1-27.
• "Women as Sources of Redemption in Chang Hsien-liang's Camp Fiction." Asia Major, IV, part 2 (1991): 115-131.
• "Repetition in Xingshi yinyuan zhuan." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 51.1 (1991): 55-87.
• "Bianzheng de xiangxiang: tan Nanren de yiban shi nüren zhong xuyi de maodun" [The Dialectical Imagination: On the Carefully Designed Ambivalence in Half of Man Is Woman]. Zhongwai wenxue [Chung-wai Literary Monthly, Taipei] 20.1 (1991): 96-105.
• "Ironic Intertextuality in Six Chapters from a Floating Life and Six Chapters from Life at a Cadre School." Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association 26.2 (1991): 51-80.
• "Fusheng liuji yu ganxiao liuji xushu fengge zhi bijiao" [A Comparison of the Narrative Styles of Shen Fu's (1763-1809?) Six Chapters from a Floating Life and Yang Jiang's (1911- ) Six Chapters from Life at a Cadre School]. Zhongwai wenxue 19.9 (1991):79-93.
• "The Inversion of Marital Hierarchy: Shrewish Wives and Henpecked Husbands in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Literature." Harvard Journal of Asiatic studies 48.2 (1988): 363-382.
• "Xingshi yinyuan zhuan de banben wenti" [Problems Regarding the Editions of Xingshi yinyuan zhuan]. Zhongwai wenxue 17.2 (1988): 97-107.
• "Jianjie nuowei zuojia Kenute Hamusun ji qi zuopin" [An Introduction to the Norwegian Writer Knut Hamsun and His Works]. Zhongwai wenxue 9.8 (1981): 47-61.
Contribution to Books:
• "Daolun: zai qifu yu nüqiangren, daiyan yu xingbie, bianyuan yu zhongxin zhijian" ("Introduction: Between Deserted Woman and 'Woman of Mettle,' Personae and Gender, Margin and Center"). In Zhongguo funü yu wenxue lunji, di'er ji (Critical Essays on Chinese Women and Literature, Volume Two). Ed. Yenna Wu with Philip F. Williams. Taipei: Daw Shiang Publishing Co., 2001.
• "Cong yiben Wan Qing xiaoshuo guankui Qingmo fan chanzu yundong he lunshu" ("A Late-Qing Novel's Perspective on the Anti-footbinding Movement and Discourse"). In Zhongguo funü yu wenxue lunji, di'er ji (Critical Essays on Chinese Women and Literature, Volume Two). Ed. Yenna Wu with Philip F. Williams. Taipei: Daw Shiang Publishing Co., 2001.
• "Zhongguo seqing xiaoshuo zhong de funü xingxiang yu xing jiaoyu" ("The Representation of Women and Sex Education in Chinese Erotic Fiction"). In Zhongguo funü yu wenxue lunji, diyi ji (Critical Essays on Chinese Women and Literature, Volume One). Ed. Yenna Wu with Philip F. Williams. Taipei: Daw Shiang Publishing Co., 1999. Pp. 23- 78.
• "Xulun" ("Introduction"). In Zhongguo funü yu wenxue lunji, diyi ji (Critical Essays on Chinese Women and Literature, Volume One). Ed. Yenna Wu with Philip F. Williams. Taipei: Daw Shiang Publishing Co., 1999. Pp. 1-22.
• "Chinese Fiction." In The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation. Ed. Peter France. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. 232-236.
• "Vernacular Stories." In The Columbia History of Chinese Literature. Ed. Victor H. Mair. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. Pp. 595-619.
• "Hsing-shih yin-yüan chuan." In The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, Volume 2. Ed. William H. Nienhauser, Jr. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998. Pp. 53-58.
• "Tou-p'eng hsien-hua." In The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, Volume 2. Ed. William H. Nienhauser, Jr. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998. Pp. 158- 162.
• "Six Classic Novels." In Encyclopedia of the Novel. Ed. Paul E. Schellinger. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1998. Pp. 1226-1231.
Selected Translations:
• "Yuanyang hudie pai xiaoshuo zhong de xinshi nüxing" (New-style Women in Mandarin Duck and Butterfly Fiction). Translation of selected passages from Perry Link's Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies: Popular Fiction in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Cities (Univ. of California Press, 1981). In Zhongguo funü yu wenxue lunji, diyi ji (Critical Essays on Chinese Women and Literature, Volume One). Ed. Yenna Wu with Philip F. Williams. Taipei: Daw Shiang, 1999. Pp. 159-194.
• Thirty poems by Wang Fengxian and Zhang Yinyuan (17th cent.). In Women Writers of Traditional China: An Anthology of Poetry and Criticism. Eds. Kang-i Sun Chang and Haun Saussy. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. Pp. 291-301.
• "Preface to Part One of David Copperfield" [Lin Shu (1852-1924)]. In Modern Chinese Literary Thought: Writings on Literature, 1893-1945. Ed. Kirk A. Denton. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. Pp. 82-83.
• "Preface to Oliver Twist" [Lin Shu (1852-1924)]. In Modern Chinese Literary Thought: Writings on Literature, 1893-1945. Ed. Kirk A. Denton. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. Pp. 84-86.
• "Ma Jiefu" [a classical tale by Pu Songling (1640-1715)]. Renditions (Hong Kong) 43 (Spring 1995): 16-24.
• "Jie Zhitui Traps His Jealous Wife In An Inferno" [chapter one of Idle Talk Under the Bean Arbor (Doupeng xianhua)], with a "Translator's Introduction." Renditions 44 (Autumn 1995): 17-32.
• E [Hunger] (Taipei: Chi-wen Publishing Co., 1982). 256 pp. A translation of Knut Hamsun's novel from English into Chinese with a critical introduction, authorial chronology, and two prefaces by other authors.