Cultural engagement in missionary China: American missionary novels 1880-1930
Lin, Yi-Ling
This item is only available for download by members of the University of Illinois community. Students, faculty, and staff at the U of I may log in with your NetID and password to view the item. If you are trying to access an Illinois-restricted dissertation or thesis, you can request a copy through your library's Inter-Library Loan office or purchase a copy directly from ProQuest.
Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/2142/45625
Description
Title
Cultural engagement in missionary China: American missionary novels 1880-1930
Author(s)
Lin, Yi-Ling
Issue Date
2013-08-22T16:55:48Z
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Chai, Leon
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Hassan, Wail S.
Committee Member(s)
Palencia-Roth, Michael
Tierney, Robert T.
Xu, Gary G.
Huntington, Rania
Department of Study
Comparative & World Literature
Discipline
Comparative Literature
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Date of Ingest
2013-08-22T16:55:48Z
Keyword(s)
American missionary novels
cultural assimilation
cultural identification
Abstract
From a comparative standpoint, the American Protestant missionary enterprise in China was built on a paradox in cross-cultural encounters. In order to convert the Chinese—whose religion they rejected—American missionaries adopted strategies of assimilation (e.g. learning Chinese and associating with the Chinese) to facilitate their work. My dissertation explores how American Protestant missionaries negotiated the rejection-assimilation paradox involved in their missionary work and forged a cultural identification with China in their English novels set in China between the late Qing and 1930. I argue that the missionaries’ novelistic expression of that identification was influenced by many factors: their targeted audience, their motives, their work, and their perceptions of the missionary enterprise, cultural difference, and their own missionary identity. Hence, missionary novels may not necessarily be about conversion, the missionaries’ primary objective but one that suggests their resistance to Chinese culture, or at least its religion. Instead, the missionary novels I study culminate in a non-conversion theme that problematizes the possibility of cultural assimilation and identification over ineradicable racial and cultural differences. My dissertation redresses a significant oversight in current scholarship on American missionary novels, which focuses on those of the Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck only.
Use this login method if you
don't
have an
@illinois.edu
email address.
(Oops, I do have one)
IDEALS migrated to a new platform on June 23, 2022. If you created
your account prior to this date, you will have to reset your password
using the forgot-password link below.
