La Chine, mon amour?

Feministische und queere Transfers durch den Maoismus: Tel Quel, 1974

Abstract

In the spring of 1974, against the backdrop of pro-maoist enthusiasm in Western leftist movements, five French avantgarde intellectuals went on a trip to China. Belonging to the inner circle of Tel Quel, a leading journal, they published extensively on their “Chinese” experience over the following years. The article proposes a re-reading both of the travelers’ texts and their numerous critics, focusing on those elements which critical readers seem to have systematically ignored so far. After discussing the main outlines of how Tel Quel’s reports are usually read – the theme of orientalism figuring prominently here – the article concentrates on three hitherto neglected questions. First, what “really happens” in the often-quoted key scene where Julia Kristeva introduces the encounter of the group with the strangers’ gaze? Second, what happens if we understand her book On Chinese Women as an inter-text within a series of feminist travelogues on China? Third, scrutinizing representations of Roland Barthes and François Wahl, in what ways are homosexual presence and homophobia at stake in Tel Quel’s “Chinese” narrations?