Gender and Genre in Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction Reimagining Premodern Tropes in Hao Jingfang's "Folding Beijing" and Xia Jia's "One Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight"

Chinese science fiction's grow ing pop u lar ity and inte gra tion into an increas ingly diverse global science fic tion field have sparked dis cus sion of the genre's approach to gen dered sub jec tiv ity. This arti cle explores the inter sec tions of gen der and genre in Chi nese sci ence fic tion on both tex tual and extra tex tual lev els. The author argues that Hao Jingfang's (sic)(sic)(sic) "Beijing zhedie" (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic) (Folding Beijing) and Xia Jia's (sic)(sic) "Baigui yexing jie" (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic) (One Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight) com bine, sub vert, and rein ter pret tropes of premod ern Chinese literary genres like caizi jiaren (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic) (scholar beauty romances) and zhiguai (sic)(sic) (tales of the strange) to cri tique gen dered and racialized expec ta tions placed upon Chi nese women via dis courses like patriarchal authoritarianism and ornamentalism. Such strategic mobilizations of generic tropes, when consid ered in the con text of larger dis cur sive fields, chal lenge pop u lar con cep tions of sci ence fic tion as a maledom i nated genre and expand defi ni tions of sci ence fic tion within China and glob ally.