Yenna Chen's Books

The Chinese Virago

By: Yenna Wu

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Drawing from a broad array of literary, historical, dramatic and anecdotal sources, Yenna Wu makes a rich exploration of an unusually prominent theme in premodern Chinese prose fiction and drama: that of jealous and belligerent wives, or viragos, who dominate their husbands and abuse other women. Focusing on Chinese literary works from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, she presents many colorful perspectives on this type of aggression, reviewing early literary and historical examples of the phenomenon. Wu argues that although the various portraits of the virago often reveal the writers' insecurities about strong-willed women in general, the authors also satirize the kind of man whose behavioral patterns have been catalysts for female aggression. She also shows that, while the women in these works are to some extent male constructs designed to affirm the patriarchal system, various elements of these portraits constitute a subversive form of parody that casts a revealing light on the patriarchal hierarchy of premodern China.

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Page Count

323

Publisher

BRILL

Published Date

ISBN 10

1684170206

ISBN 13

9781684170203

The Great Wall of Confinement

The Chinese Prison Camp Through Contemporary Fiction and Reportage

By: Philip F. Williams,Yenna Wu

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The Great Wall of Confinement

The Chinese Prison Camp Through Contemporary Fiction and Reportage

By: Philip F. Williams,Yenna Wu

China is so big and so diverse that, as in the proverbial blind man touching an elephant, contemporary descriptions that vary dramatically can all be true. Few visitors to glittering Shanghai of Shenzhen, for example, will get any impression of the gaping gray maw of the government's prison camp system that Philip Williams and Yenna Wu, basing themselves on a vast range of Chinese sources, illuminate in erudite detail. The authors look at every facet of the camps, place them within China's historical tradition, and compare them with modern analogues. Throughout, literary and autobiographical sources give the 'feel' for the deadening world of the camps."—Perry Link, author of The Uses of Literature: Life in the Socialist Chinese Literary System "The Great Wall of Confinement deals with issues ranging from the legal grounding—or the lack of any—of the Chinese concentration camp system, to its technical implementation, its discursive manifestation, and its physical as well as psychological impact. A book like this is long overdue. With this work, Williams and Wu have made an important contribution to the fields of Chinese legal and literary studies."—David Der-wei Wang, author of The Monster That Is History "The Great Wall of Confinement is an excellent book. It synthesizes an already significant corpus of writings on Chinese prisons and labor camps, marshals an array of literary sources as essential historical source materials, and compares the literature of Chinese incarceration with its Soviet and European counterparts. The value of this important study stems equally from its tone—a rare combination of a level-headed quality with a very fine sensitivity to the human tragedy recounted in this literature."—Jean-Luc Domenach, author of Où va la Chine? (Where does China Go?) "The Great Wall of Confinement has attempted to lift part of the veil on China's long lasting tragedy: the use of imprisonment, torture, forced labor against its citizens, whether criminals, feeble minded or simply political opponents. The angle is new; the question is to find out how Chinese have written on this subject, whether in fiction or reportage, the way they went about telling their stories, how much they said, or withheld. Through Philip Willams and Yenna Wu's thought-provoking analysis of such writings, of the cultural origins of forced labor and imprisonment in imperial and Communist China, one comes closer to this sinister reality, which remains to this day one of the best kept secrets of our planet."—Marie Holzman, President of the Association Solidarité Chine

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Page Count

261

Publisher

Univ of California Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0520244028

ISBN 13

9780520244023

Contemporary Design in Detail: Sustainable Environments

By: Yenna Chan

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Contemporary Design in Detail: Sustainable Environments

By: Yenna Chan

A visual look at the architectural details of sustainable residential spaces The Contemporary Design in Detail series takes a highly visual look at architectural design details that are more often dealt with in a technical textbook format.

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194

Published Date

ISBN 10

1610596544

ISBN 13

9781610596541

Human Rights, Suffering, and Aesthetics in Political Prison Literature

By: Yenna Wu

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Human Rights, Suffering, and Aesthetics in Political Prison Literature

By: Yenna Wu

This interdisciplinary volume of essays studies human rights in political prison literature, while probing the intersections of suffering, politics, and aesthetics in an interliterary and intercultural context. As the first book to explore the concept of global aesthetics in political prison narratives, it demonstrates how literary insight enhances the study of human rights. Covering varied geographical and geopolitical regions, this collection encourages comparative analyses and cross-cultural understanding. Seeking to interrogate linguistic, structural, and cultural constructions of the political prison experience, it highlights the literary aspects without losing sight of the political and the theoretical. The contributors cross various disciplinary boundaries and adopt different interpretive perspectives in analyzing prison narratives, especially memoirs, from such diverse countries as China, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Romania, Russia, Uruguay, and the U.S. The volume emphasizes the literary works produced since the second half of the twentieth century, particularly since the political seismic shift in 1989. The authors treated range from the canonical to the less well-known: Nawal El Saadawi, Varlam Shalamov, Zhang Xianliang, Cong Weixi, Wumingshi, Carlos Liscano, Fatna El Bouih, Nabil Sulayman, Faraj Bayraqdar, Hasiba 'Abdalrahman, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Nicolae Steinhardt, Irina Ratushinskaya, etc. Critical issues investigated include how the writers represent their sufferings, experiences, and emotions during incarceration; their strategies of survival; and how political prison literature can reveal hidden violations of human rights, while resisting official discourse and serving other functions in society. Examining the commonalities and differences in global experiences of imprisonment, the eight chapters engage with the aesthetics of self-making and resistance, individual and collective memory, denial and conversion, catharsis and redemption, and the experiencing and witnessing of trauma. Topics also include the politics of remembering and the politics of representation, such as the problematic relationship between narrative, language, and representations of torture. Similarly under discussion are prison aesthetics of happiness, the role of spectacle in the criminal justice system, and the intersection of prison, gender, and silences. At a juncture when more and more people all over the world actively defy repressive regimes and demand political reform, this book makes a timely contribution to the advocacy and discourse of universal human rights.

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Page Count

226

Publisher

Lexington Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0739167421

ISBN 13

9780739167427

Contemporary Design in Detail: Sustainable Environments

By: Yenna Chen,Alicia Kennedy

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Contemporary Design in Detail: Sustainable Environments

By: Yenna Chen,Alicia Kennedy

A visual look at the architectural details of sustainable residential spaces The Contemporary Design Details series takes a highly visual look at architectural design details that are more often dealt with in a technical textbook format. The books take readers on a tour of the best details designed by great architects around the world. The series provides a powerful presentation of the most challenging and evolving architectural and design categories. Sustainable Environments focuses on the type of architectural details in distinctive, sustainable residential spaces. It includes sections on components such as cooling or shading devices, building techniques that create minimal impact on the land, active systems, and the use of new sustainable materials as well as those that are salvaged or recyclable. The book presents recent work by architects from around the globe in color photographs and architectural drawings, and is structured according to categories of architectural detail.

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Page Count

192

Publisher

Rockport Publishers

Published Date

ISBN 10

1616735937

ISBN 13

9781616735937

Book's by Yenna Chen

The Chinese Virago

The Chinese Virago

The Great Wall of Confinement

The Great Wall of Confinement

Contemporary Design in Detail: Sustainable Environments

Contemporary Design in Detail: Sustainable Environments

Human Rights, Suffering, and Aesthetics in Political Prison Literature

Human Rights, Suffering, and Aesthetics in Political Prison Literature

Contemporary Design in Detail: Sustainable Environments

Contemporary Design in Detail: Sustainable Environments

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