title: The Makings of a ‘Literary Chinoiserie’: Representations of an ‘Exotic’ China as Acts of ‘Literary Yellowface’ in Anglophone Historical Fiction 1978 – 2008
Creators: name: Yavetz, Susan
Publisher: name: University of Liverpool Repository
Year: 2029

description: This doctoral thesis examines representations of China and Chinese people as ‘exotic’ in popular and middle-brow historical fiction written in English, published between 1978 and 2008. Building on the theoretical basis of Edward Said’s Orientalism and Victor Segalen’s conceptions of the exotic, I use textual and paratextual analysis to question the extent to which such works of fiction can be considered as what I term ‘literary chinoiserie’ (a non-Chinese work with the physical and texual trappings of Chineseness) written as acts of ‘literary yellowface’ (non-Chinese authors co-opting Chinese voices). I also question whether the guise of historicity offers a degree of license for authors to use established tropes and stereotypes that have their basis in the complex historical relationship between China and the West, and the politics and economics of representation by which this relationship is manifested in the literary marketplace. 

In order to assess the extent to which contemporary Anglophone China-themed historical fiction perpetuates or subverts Orientalist tropes, each of the four chapters focuses on three carefully selected popular/middle-brow novels for textual and paratextual analysis. The themes of the chapters are: Ancient China, examining the reasons for setting the texts within particular historical periods, and arguing that it is an attempt to exploit a Chinese ‘exotic’ while obfuscating the exoticising gesture by situating it within this historical context; the ‘exotic’ Chinese female, analysing three novels’ contributions to Orientalist envisionings of an ‘exotic’ China in history through female characters and feminine settings; Old Shanghai, exploring what I term ‘competing exotics’ – portrayals of Sephardi Jewish merchants, Ashkenazi Jewish refugees, and Japanese invaders/occupiers, compared to representations of Chinese people; and the figure of the white man during times of Western colonialist and military tension in China. 

In analysing novels that have not previously been the object of academic study, I assess the extent to which Orientalist tropes and stereotypes are still apparent in contemporary popular/middle-brow literature, and use analysis this to consider the status of current cultural envisionings of China via the lens of fiction. While scholarship exists on the representation of China and the Chinese in Anglophone literature of certain time periods and in specific regions, this thesis addresses the gap that exists in terms of a single-genre study focusing on the wider Anglosphere. 

This thesis contributes to an understanding of how Western perceptions of China filter down into cultural products, as part of a trajectory that began with the ‘Yellow Peril’ literature of the early 1900s. My coinage of the terms ‘literary chinoiserie’ and ‘literary yellowface’ offer a new way of considering novels written about China and Chinese people by non-Chinese authors.