Transcultural Feminist Philosophy

Rethinking Difference and Solidarity through Chinese – American Encounters

Yuanfang Dai

The question of difference—how to accommodate the complexity and diversity of women’s experiences—remains a central point of reference in debates among feminist thinkers. In Transcultural Feminist Philosophy: Rethinking Difference and Solidarity Through Chinese-American Encounters, Yuanfang Dai addresses influential approaches to the feminist difference critique. Acknowledging that gender oppression assumes different forms in different social and cultural locations, Dai denies that this rules out generalizing about women’s experiences. She proposes a category of women that captures and respects differences and dynamics among women and that can inform possibilities for women in the future. Through a critical examination of multicultural and postcolonial feminisms, she argues that we need both to rethink the concept of culture and to rework multiculturalism as an analytical and political idea. Developing a notion of transculturalism, she draws on Chinese feminist scholarship as she explores how a transcultural approach can address tensions between cultural differences and feminist solidarity. Transcultural thought and action offers a new way to explore the conditions of women’s collective struggles.

Lexington Books

Pages: 296 • Trim: 6½ x 9

978-1-4985-6481-6 • Hardback • December 2019 • $117.00 • (£90.00)

Series: Feminist Strategies: Flexible Theories and Resilient Practices

Subjects: Philosophy / Eastern, Philosophy / Comparative Philosophy, Philosophy / General, Social Science / Gender Studies, Social Science / World / Asia

Transcultural Feminist Philosophy

Rethinking Difference and Solidarity through Chinese – American Encounters

Hardback

Summary

The question of difference—how to accommodate the complexity and diversity of women’s experiences—remains a central point of reference in debates among feminist thinkers. In Transcultural Feminist Philosophy: Rethinking Difference and Solidarity Through Chinese-American Encounters, Yuanfang Dai addresses influential approaches to the feminist difference critique. Acknowledging that gender oppression assumes different forms in different social and cultural locations, Dai denies that this rules out generalizing about women’s experiences. She proposes a category of women that captures and respects differences and dynamics among women and that can inform possibilities for women in the future. Through a critical examination of multicultural and postcolonial feminisms, she argues that we need both to rethink the concept of culture and to rework multiculturalism as an analytical and political idea. Developing a notion of transculturalism, she draws on Chinese feminist scholarship as she explores how a transcultural approach can address tensions between cultural differences and feminist solidarity. Transcultural thought and action offers a new way to explore the conditions of women’s collective struggles.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 296 • Trim: 6½ x 9

978-1-4985-6481-6 • Hardback • December 2019 • $117.00 • (£90.00)

Series: Feminist Strategies: Flexible Theories and Resilient Practices

Subjects: Philosophy / Eastern, Philosophy / Comparative Philosophy, Philosophy / General, Social Science / Gender Studies, Social Science / World / Asia

Author

Yuanfang Dai is assistant professor of writing and philosophy at Michigan State University.

Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction

Part One The “Difference Critique” and the Feminist Identity Politics

Chapter 1 Women’s Oppression in Different Forms: Against “Inessential ‘Womanness’”

Chapter 2 Theory of Intersectionality
Chapter 3 Unwanted Feminist Identity Politics: Postmodernist Category Skepticism

Chapter 4 Women’s Identity and the Necessity of Differences

Part Two From Multiculturalism to Transculturalism

Chapter 5 Reconceptualizing “Culture”: Examining Tensions between Multiculturalism and Feminism

Chapter 6 Challenging “Multiculturalism”: Feminist Multiculturalism and the Ideology of Multiculturalism

Chapter 7 Displacing Multiculturalism with an Alternative Framework: A Way to Advance the Postcolonial Feminist Critique of Multiculturalism

Chapter 8 The Transcultural Perspective as the Alternative to the Multicultural Approach

Part Three Transcultural Feminist Solidarity, Chinese Feminist Experiences, and Transcultural Feminist Philosophy

Chapter 9 Transcultural Feminist Solidarity

Chapter 10 Looking to the East: Chinese Confucian Philosophy and FeminismChapter 11 Looking to the West: A Brief History of Theory Development in Contemporary Chinese Feminism Chapter 12 Commentary on Debates and Prospects in Contemporary Chinese Feminist ThinkingConclusion BibliographyAbout the Author

Reviews

This book makes a significant contribution to post-colonial feminist discourse. In Transcultural Feminist Philosophy: Rethinking Difference and Solidarity through Chinese-American Encounters, Yuanfang Dai offers a thought-provoking critique of existing feminist models and proposes “transcultural feminism” (vis-à-vis “transnational feminism”) as an alternative. The book invites the readers to rethink what “culture” means as it intersects with feminism and with the dense thicket of multiculturalism.
— Ann A. Pang-White, The University of Scranton, Pennsylvania