Evans, Professor Harriet
Telephone: +44(0)207 911 5000 ext 7603
Postal: Centre for the Study of Democracy
University of Westminster
32-38 Wells Street
London, W1T 3UW.
E-mail: evansh@wmin.ac.uk
Professor Harriet Evans was educated at the University of London's School of African and Oriental Studies, the University of BritishColombia, the Beijing Languages Institute, and Beijing University.
She taught modern Chinese history in Mexico between 1979 and 1984. Formerly Head of the University of Westminster's Chinese Section, she is now co-ordinator of Asia Studies research at CSD, and of the MA and MPhil/PhD programmes in Contemporary Chinese Cultural Studies and International Studies.
Her publications include Women and Sexuality in China: Discourses of Female Sexuality and Gender since 1949 (Polity Press, 1997), and Picturing Power in the People's Republic of China: Posters of the Cultural Revolution (co-edited with Stephanie Donald, Rowman and Littlefield, 1999); The Subject of Gender: Daughters and Mothers in Urban China (Rowman and Littlefield, 2007).
She has contributed many articles to leading journals and edited volumes, and is a regular consultant for BBC radio and non-governmental agencies on women, gender and human rights in China.
She was President of the British Association for Chinese Studies (2002-5), has served on the Executive Committee of the Universities' China Committee in London, and is member of the editorial boards of Estudios de Asia y Africa (El Colegio de Mexico), Intersections: Gender, History and Cultural in the Asian Context, and was recently invited to join the editorial board of The China Quarterly.
Publications
Books
The Subject of Gender: Mothers and Daughters in Urban China, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007.
Synopsis:
in this book Prof. Evans discusses mother-daughter relationships in
urban China, reflecting on how women make sense of the shifts in
practices and representations of gender that frame their lives, and how
their self-identification as mothers and daughters contributes to the
redefinition of those practices. Based on the memories and experiences
of educated and professional women of different ages, the
mother-daughter relationship is discussed through various themes such
as separation, communication, domestic/public boundaries, male
privilege, the sexed body, reproduction and filial responsibilities. (Read review of the book in Choice here)
The Subject of Gender: Mothers and Daughters in Urban China is listed among the best 10 books about Chinese Women in 2008by the highly influencial blog The China Beat.
From the blog's review of the book: 'Evans show that contemporary Chinese “superwomen” (nü qiangren) are carrying on the legacy of their late imperial sisters, and that in so doing they rely on some degree of cultural continuity to make sense of their lives [...] Evans bring them right into your heart.
Picturing Power in China: Posters of the Cultural Revolution, co-edited with Stephanie Donald, Bloomington: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999.
Women and Sexuality in China: Dominant Discourses of Female Sexuality and Gender since 1949, Cambridge: Polity Press, and New York: Continuum, 1997. Appearing in translation, Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2007 (forthcoming)
Refereed articles and book chapters (selected)
'The gender of China's modernities,' in Kam Louie, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Modern Chinese Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007 (forthcoming).
'Chinese Communism,/Chinese Feminism', in Aspasia (Budapest) Vol. 1 (2007), pp403-24, special issue edited by Francisca de Haan, Maria Bucur and Krassmirara Daskalova.
'Fashion and feminine consumption,' in Kevin Latham, Stuart Thomson and Jakob Klein, eds., Consuming China: Approaches to cultural change in contemporary China, London: Routledge, 2006, pp313-45.
'The language of liberation: gender and 'jiefang' in early Chinese Communist Party discourse,' in Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, ed., Twentieth Century China: New Approaches, London: Routledge, 2003, pp193-220.
'Past, Perfect or Imperfect and Future: Changing Images of the Ideal Wife’, in Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom and Susan Brownell, eds. Chinese Femininities/Chinese Masculinities, A Reader, University of California Press, 2002, pp335-360.
'What Colour is Beautiful Hair? Subjective interventions and Global Fashions in the Cultural Production of Gender in Urban China', in figurationen: gender, literature, culture, special issue ed, by Sander Gilman, 2/2001: 117-132.
‘Marketing Femininity’, in Timothy Weston and Lionel Jensen, eds., China Beyond the Headlines: A Global Conversation, Bloomington: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000.
Current Research Projects
Dashilanr: an oral history of everyday life in south Beijing
Posters of the Cultural Revolution: Contemporary Chinese perspectives on an era of propaganda
Professor Evans is also a workshop organizer participating in a project coordinated by the Anthropology Department, London school of Economics, on The Transmission and Recognition of Grievous Loss.
Teaching
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Problems and Perspectives in Cultural Studies
