From the early 20th century to the contemporary period, the figure of a woman living in a modern and urban context has provided a distinctive problem for popular Chinese literature and film. Despite the changing social conditions of each new political and culture turn of 20th and early 21st century, the dilemma of these "new woman" has persisted in different forms. As the writer Lu Xun once asked, what happens to the woman when she leaves the traditional domestic sphere? Is she condemned to a life of exploitation, or will she be forced to return home? This course proposes that modernity in popular Chinese culture has been tied to the construction of gender, particularly that of the “New Woman.” In turn, we will question in our various readings and viewings what happens when the ideas modernity, history, and technology are anchored to these particular portrayals of gender. Practicing close-reading and critical interpretation, we will read modern literary texts – for example, by Lu Xun, Xiao Hong, Eileen Chang, Sheng Keyi, – and watch films directed by Cai Chusheng, Sang Hu, Xie Jin, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, and Wang Bing – from the late 1920s to the contemporary period. Together, we will analyze how the contradictory figure of the modern woman has changed and evolved through different periods and across different regions of Chinese cultural production. This course introduces a wide-range of Chinese language materials in translation, and no previous knowledge of China is required. This class fulfills the second half of the College of Letters and Science’s Reading and Composition requirement. Over the course of the summer, we will practice translating our process of analyzing literature and film to your own analytical writing and research. We will build on frequent short in-class and at-home writing exercises building up to a final paper. By the end of the course, you should be able to identify various literary, visual, and other formal techniques and analyze their use; draw connections among our readings and viewings; conduct relevant research; create your own original arguments that address the larger questions of the course; and strengthen your writing by incorporating feedback from your classmates and instructors. This will help prepare you not only for writing across the humanities, but also for critically engaging with material you encounter every day.