Faculty of Arts Asia Institute

Assoc Prof Anne Elizabeth McLaren

Contact Details

Room 228,
Asia Institute,
The University of Melbourne, VIC 3010 Australia

Tel: +61 3 8344 5149
Email: mclaae@unimelb.edu.au

Background & Research Interests

Anne McLaren researches significant areas in Chinese popular culture from the late imperial to the contemporary period, with a focus on the interaction between performance arts, popular fiction and print culture. She has also published on cultural factors in Chinese cyberspace. She has authored or edited five books and many other studies and serves on the board of a number of international journals in these fields.  A recent interest is the ethnoecology of the lower Yangzi delta, especially the way that folk performance reflects human response to the transformation of the local environment.

Anne McLaren collaborates with international researchers on joint publication projects, such as “First Impressions: The Cultural History of Print in Imperial China (8-14 centuries)” (Harvard 2007);  “The Interplay of Oral and Written Traditions in Chinese Fiction, Drama and Performance Literature” (Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, Oslo, 2007); “Internet Domains Between China and India” (ARC funded China Node project), and “Ming Qing Women’s Writing:Traditional Women through a Modern Lens” (Harvard University).

Her projects have received funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation. Currently she is a member of an ARC-funded research team investigating beginners’ language courses in Australian higher education.

Anne McLaren teaches courses in Chinese language and culture and supervises postgraduates in fields such as Chinese literature, culture, religion and gender issues. Her most recent book, Performing Grief:Bridal Laments in Rural China, is the first  Western monographic study on this subject and offers a rare glimpse into the lives of women in pre-socialist China (pre-1949).

Please also see Anne McLaren's Research and Publications Showcase.

Qualifications

Committees, Board Memberships

Selected Publications

Books/edited volumes

Anne E. McLaren (2008) Gender, Performance & Grievance: the Bridal Laments of Nanhui. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

McLaren, Anne E.ed. (2007) East Asian Cyberspace, Special Issue of Asian Studies Review (31:4) London: Taylor & Francis, 385-470.

McLaren, Anne  E. ed.(2004) Chinese Women: Working and Living. London:Curzon Routledge. 194 pp.

Antonia Finnane & Anne McLaren eds. (1999) Dress, Sex & Text: the Culture of Chinese Women. Melbourne, Monash Asia Institute, 1999. Distributed  International Book Distribution , Portland, Oregon, 290 pp.

McLaren, Anne E. (1998) Chinese Popular Culture and Ming Chantefables. Leiden, Brill Academic Publishers, Sinica Leidensia Vol. 41, 1998, 340 pp. + 10 plates.

McLaren, Anne E. (1994) The Chinese Femme Fatale: Stories from the Ming Period. University of Sydney East Asian Monographs, No. 8, 1994. Distributed by University of Hawaii Press, 102 pp.

Articles published in refereed journals/chapters in edited books (2000—)

McLaren, Anne E. (2008) “Nüshu [Women’s Script]”, Encyclopedia of Women in World History. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press.
http://www.oup.com/online/digitalreference/

McLaren, Anne E. (2008) “Competing for Women: the Marriage Market as Reflected in Folk Performance in the Lower Yangzi Delta”, Intersections:Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, electronic journal, issue 16.
http://intersections.anu.edu/Issue16

McLaren, Anne E. (2007) “Online Intimacy in a Chinese Setting” Asian Studies Review (published by London: Francis & Taylor) 31:4, pp.409-422.

McLaren, Anne E. (2006) “History Repackaged in the Age of Print: the Sanguozhi and Sanguo yanyi”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental & African Studies of the University of London; (publ. by Cambridge University Press), 69:2, pp.293-313.

McLaren, Anne E. (2006) “China’s Internet Culture: the case of virtual marriage”, The International Journal of the Humanities, Vol. 3, pp. 1-4.

McLaren, Anne E. (2005) “Constructing New Reading Publics in Late Ming China”, in C. Brokaw & K. Chow eds, Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China, Calif. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp.152-183.

McLaren, Anne E. (2005) “Formats, Texts & Readerships in Late Ming China”, in Isobe Akira, ed. Studies of Publishing Culture in East Asia- Kohaku, Tokyo: Nigensha press, pp.189-194.

McLaren, Anne E. (2004)  “Print Culture in China and the Emergence of the Common Reader”, in Isobe Akira, ed. Studies of Publishing Culture in East Asia-Niwatazumi”, Tokyo, Nigensha press, pp.283-292.

McLaren, Anne E. (2004) “Women’s Work and Ritual Space in China” in Anne E McLaren, ed. Chinese Women: Working and Living. London:Curzon Routledge, anticip. 2004, pp.169-187.

McLaren, Anne E. (2004) “Introduction”, in Anne E McLaren, ed. Chinese Women:Working and Living. London:Curzon Routledge, 2004, pp.1-16.

McLaren, Anne E & Chen Qinjian (2004) “Zhongguo funü de koutou wenhua yu yishi wenhua” [The Oral and Ritual Culture of  Chinese Women], Minsu yanjiu [Folklore Studies] 2004, Vol. 2, pp.26-55.

McLaren, Anne E. (2003), “Investigating Readerships in Late-Imperial China: A Reflection on Methodologies”, The East Asian Library Journal (Princeton University) Vol. X:2, Aut.2001 (published 2003), pp.104-159.

McLaren, Anne E. (2003) “Mothers, Daughters, and the Socialisation of the Chinese Bride”, Asian Studies Review [Blackwells] Vol. 27:1, pp.1-21.
*Winner of the 2004 Award for the most outstanding article published in the Asian Studies Review in 2003.

McLaren, Anne E. (2003) “From Print to the Internet in China: some socio-historical perspectives” in Howard Dare & Mary Kalantzis, eds. International Journal of the Book, Vol. 1, pp.299-307.

McLaren, Anne E. (2002) “Zhuge Liang, Taoism and the Textual History of  The Narrative of the Three Kingdoms”   in Lee Cheuk Yin and Chan Man Sing, eds. A Daoist Florilegium: A Festschrift Dedicated to Professor Liu Ts’un-yan, Hong Kong: Commercial Press, pp. 235-286.

McLaren, Anne (2002) “The Oral-formulaic Tradition” in Victor H. Mair, ed. Columbia History of Chinese Literature, Columbia University Press, pp.989-1014.
McLaren, Anne E. (2001) “Marriage by Abduction in Twentieth Century China”, Modern Asian Studies (Cambridge University Press), Vol. 35:4, Oct. 2001, pp.953-984.
McLaren, Anne (2001) “Australia as Dystopia: Recent Mainland Chinese Writings in Australia”, in Wenche Ommundsen, ed. Bastard Moons:Essays on Chinese-Australian Writing , A Special Edition of Otherland, 7, pp.193-206.

McLaren, Anne & Chen Qinjian (2000) “The Oral and Ritual Culture of Chinese Women: the Bridal Lamentations of Nanhui”, Asian Folklore  Studies (Nanzan University, Japan) 59, pp.205-238.

McLaren, Anne E. (2000) “The Grievance Rhetoric of Chinese Women:From Lamentation to Revolution”, Intersections: Gender, History & Culture in the Asian Context Issue 4, September 2000, 18 pp.
http://wwwsshe.murdoch.edu.au/intersections/issue4/mclaren.html

McLaren, Anne E (2000) “Crossing Gender Boundaries in China: Nüshu Narratives”, in Carolyn Brewer & Anne-Marie Medcalf, eds. Researching the Fragments: Histories of Women in the Asian Context, New Day, 2000, pp.198-272. 1st published in Intersections: Gender, History & Culture in the Asian Context Issue 1, Sept 1998.
http://wwwsshe.murdoch.edu.au/intersections/back_issues/nushu2.html

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