Romancing the Internet

In Romancing the Internet: Producing and Consuming Chinese Web Romance, Jin Feng examines the evolution of Chinese popular romance on the Internet. She first provides a brief genealogy of Chinese Web literature and Chinese popular romance, and then investigates how large socio-cultural forces have shaped new writing and reading practices and created new subgenres of popular romance in contemporary China. Integrating ethnographic methods into literary and discursive analyses, Feng offers a gendered, audience-oriented study of Chinese popular culture in the age of the Internet.

Jin Feng, Ph.D. (2000), from the University of Michigan, is Professor of Chinese at Grinnell College. She has published monographs, translation, and articles in English and Chinese on Chinese culture, including Ginling College (1915-1952): The Making of a Family Saga (SUNY, 2009).

"Yet, despite the undeniable cultural influence and financial clout of web-based literature, it is only with the 2013 publication of Jin Feng’s Romancing the Internet: Producing and Consuming Chinese Web Romance, that we have the first English-language book dedicated to a major genre within this hugely significant—as well as simply huge—area of cultural production."
Heather Inwood, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, Resource Center Publication (August 2014)

“Romancing the Internet” is an extremely stimulating read for scholars of gender and women’s studies and for those interested in Chinese popular culture in general and internet literature in particular.”
Elisabeth Schleep, University of Freiburg, 1-3

"...Feng undertakes the ambitious but much needed task of examining the immense (and ever-expanding) volume and vibrant culture of Web romance to investigate the ways in which contemporary Chinese women’s reading and writing experiences 'help them to reinvent their gender and cultural identities.' ... this innovative audience-focused literary study adeptly employs various analytical tools, including close reading, linguistic and discourse analysis, sociological data, focus group study, one-on-one interviews, and participant observation." Hui Faye Xiao Asia Pacific Perspectives, Spring/Summer 2014