Journal article Open Access
Ho, Elizabeth
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?> <record xmlns="http://www.loc.gov/MARC21/slim"> <leader>00000nam##2200000uu#4500</leader> <datafield tag="041" ind1=" " ind2=" "> <subfield code="a">eng</subfield> </datafield> <controlfield tag="005">20200120172309.0</controlfield> <controlfield tag="001">2628454</controlfield> <datafield tag="856" ind1="4" ind2=" "> <subfield code="s">318410</subfield> <subfield code="z">md5:b3cfb9982aeb7c5c71d35895ea302cc2</subfield> <subfield code="u">https://zenodo.org/record/2628454/files/NVS 11-2-3 E-Ho.pdf</subfield> </datafield> <datafield tag="542" ind1=" " ind2=" "> <subfield code="l">open</subfield> </datafield> <datafield tag="260" ind1=" " ind2=" "> <subfield code="c">2019-04-04</subfield> </datafield> <datafield tag="909" ind1="C" ind2="O"> <subfield code="p">openaire</subfield> <subfield code="o">oai:zenodo.org:2628454</subfield> </datafield> <datafield tag="909" ind1="C" ind2="4"> <subfield code="c">64-90</subfield> <subfield code="n">2</subfield> <subfield code="p">Neo-Victorian Studies</subfield> <subfield code="v">11</subfield> </datafield> <datafield tag="100" ind1=" " ind2=" "> <subfield code="u">University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong</subfield> <subfield code="a">Ho, Elizabeth</subfield> </datafield> <datafield tag="245" ind1=" " ind2=" "> <subfield code="a">Last Empress Fiction and Asian Neo-Victorianism</subfield> </datafield> <datafield tag="540" ind1=" " ind2=" "> <subfield code="u">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode</subfield> <subfield code="a">Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International</subfield> </datafield> <datafield tag="650" ind1="1" ind2="7"> <subfield code="a">cc-by</subfield> <subfield code="2">opendefinition.org</subfield> </datafield> <datafield tag="520" ind1=" " ind2=" "> <subfield code="a"><p>This article claims that &lsquo;Last Empress&rsquo; fiction about the Empress Dowager Cixi reveals the postcolonial ethics of Anglophone neo-Victorianism. &lsquo;Last Empress&rsquo; texts naturally tend to be bookended by the narrative of a na&iuml;ve yet ambitious teenage concubine entering the imperial palace and the image of the Empress Dowager, as depicted in Bernardo Bertolucci&rsquo;s 1987 film, <em>The Last Emperor</em>, rotting on her deathbed. This emphasis on Cixi&rsquo;s ageing body as a metaphor for China&rsquo;s perceived humiliations in the past manages and contains, for Western readers, a similar commodification of &lsquo;China&rsquo; as a new economic and political powerhouse and brand. This article reads a range of &lsquo;Last Empress&rsquo; texts from Anchee Min&rsquo;s popular historical fiction, <em>Empress Orchid</em> (2004) and <em>The Last Empress</em> (2007), to metafictional critiques such as Da Chen&rsquo;s <em>My Last Empress</em> (2012) and Linda Jaivin&rsquo;s <em>The Empress Lover</em> (2014), to the Singaporean blockbuster musical, <em>Forbidden City: Portrait of an Empress</em> (2002), and situates them amongst arguments about race, ageing and neo-Orientalism. Cixi&rsquo;s continued visibility in biographies, fiction, and film recasts conventional understandings of neo-Victorianism as neo-Victorian gerontology: the problematics of rejuvenating (women in) the past, (post-)feminist &lsquo;time crisis&rsquo;, and new kinds of invisibility for women past and present. At the same time, &lsquo;Last Empress&rsquo; fiction offers opportunities to reflect on the geographical pressures Asia can put on the &lsquo;neo-&rsquo; in the term &lsquo;neo-Victorian&rsquo; and the difficulties of performing truly global neo-Victorian readings.</p></subfield> </datafield> <datafield tag="773" ind1=" " ind2=" "> <subfield code="n">doi</subfield> <subfield code="i">isVersionOf</subfield> <subfield code="a">10.5281/zenodo.2628453</subfield> </datafield> <datafield tag="024" ind1=" " ind2=" "> <subfield code="a">10.5281/zenodo.2628454</subfield> <subfield code="2">doi</subfield> </datafield> <datafield tag="980" ind1=" " ind2=" "> <subfield code="a">publication</subfield> <subfield code="b">article</subfield> </datafield> </record>
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