Transcultural Feminist Philosophy: Rethinking Difference and Solidarity through Chinese American Encounters

(Hardback)

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Questions about difference are at the heart of many debates within contemporary feminism in the United States. In Transcultural Feminist Philosophy: Rethinking Difference and Solidarity Through Chinese-American Encounters, Yuanfang Dai critically assesses various approaches to the feminist difference critique, arguing that the fact that women experience gender oppression in different forms due to different social and cultural locations does not lead to the conclusion that it is impossible to generalize womens experiences. She thus proposes that we can construct a category of women that captures and respects differences among women and the possibility and the dynamics of what women can be in the future. To challenge the troubling ideology of multiculturalism and its institutionalization, Dai advances the claims of multicultural feminism and the postcolonial feminist critique by arguing that we need to reconceptualize not only culture, but also need to rethink multiculturalism as a framework. Examining Chinese feminist scholarship in transcultural settings, she then proposes a shift to transculturalism and argues that a transcultural approach is mediates assumed tensions between cultural diversity and gender equality. The transcultural approach promises to be a very useful framework by which feminists can explore the conditions of womens collective struggles.

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--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

Author Bio

Yuanfang Dai is assistant professor in the department of writing, rhetoric, and American cultures and the Center for Gender in Global Context at Michigan State University.